Between the Lines
by Lady Dementia
Summary: The words left unspoken. A negative impression left by the Beast Wars plotline.
1. Chapter 1

**Between the Lines **

* * *

I'm not going to tell you a story.

Have you ever wondered how stories are told? How an author creates a plot? Plots are important to stories, the central component around which lives and events unfold, but they are also the boundary for the same. So I won't tell you about the plot because it's a constraint, and I, for one, am tired of working within the confines of a fixed story. I want to try taking you outside.

Where does that leave us? Let's think about that. The storyteller chooses her words carefully, the scenes with extreme prejudice despite how casually each moment blends together in the end product. It's not possible to include everything. The construction of a plot questions and discards the time between paragraphs and facets of personality for characters. An episode in a show illustrates given scenes, but what happens off-camera when the audience can only see what the author has judged vital to the unfolding plot? Real lives do not include just relevant points. People are far more complicated than recorded moments of time. Time itself does not pause when the episode stops. Characters are made up of choices not made and rules followed without a moral crisis as well as the seconds that has you, the reader, on the edge of your seat with excitement. Stories are, after all, meant to hold your attention.

So where are the boring parts, the less important parts, and the parts that distract you from the main point? Why don't you ever see the character studies that don't make it into the story proper, or the "what-if" situations that go nowhere inside the plot and are therefore cut out? The pieces of crumpled paper that miss the wastebasket breed "maybe" in the spaces between scribbled words; the author's abandoned sentences continue to speak of "might have been" from the computer screen. A subplot that no one else is meant to see is still there, exploring where a story could have gone. A scene written widely outside the plot doesn't seem to have any relation to it and yet defines an author's choice in characterization. A famous quote or bittersweet song inspire a breakage of writer's block, and even if the result doesn't make the final cut, it's there all the same. Deaths, lives, and minor moments that never happen or could have happened behind the story are invisible and still shape the timeline you read.

I am not going to tell you a story. Instead, I am going to show you the negative impression of one, the empty place left behind after an author's outline has taken what it needs, and you may follow the missing phantoms of a plot wherever they take you.

* * *

_Formerly known as "The Ficlet Breeding Project," it's now been renamed as this. I can't promise the ficlets are done breeding new bits and pieces in my brain, but the fic that created them is done forming, and this is the debris. Maybe there's be some scraps from polishing the fic up later._


	2. All The Things She Said

**All The Things She Said**

* * *

Black optics narrowed above a lethal weapon pointed straight at her head. "Move and I'll blow your head off. And don't think I won't, Maximal." 

Airazor stared blandly up at the threatening widow. "Can I at least sit up?"

"…fine." Blackarachnia took a step back to give her room.

"How civil of you."

"Now, now. Be nice to the Predacon pointing a gun at your head."

Airazor made a sound that might have been laughter had the situation been any less dangerous. Pain shrilled along her neck and left wing as she slowly levered herself into an upright position; Blackarachnia must have knocked her out HARD. "Why aren't I dead yet?"

"I'm curious. Why did you pick the tiger over the ape?"

"…what?"

"You heard me." Blackarachnia smiled with sweetness so false it made a mockery of the attempt.

It was the falcon's turn to narrow her eyes. "Why do you care?"

"I had a bet with Terrorsaur that you'd hook up with Primal. I lost a week's worth of monitor duty to that featherless chicken, and I want to know why. Answer the question!"

An exasperated snort answered her. "Why does everyone assume that Tigatron and I are together?"

The gun wavered for a brief moment. "What?"

"We're not together like that. We just patrol together, and he's very polite to me."

Blackarachnia steadied her aim. "But you two are always—"

"No we're not! He's afraid to get close to anyone after…why would I tell YOU that?" Airazor snorted again, this time at herself. "Slag. I swear, everyone on this planet is convinced that we have to be more than friends. Rattrap, Cheetor, and even the slaggin' Preds…" She started to gesture expansively, then appeared to think better of the idea when Blackarachnia's pincer tightened visibly on her gun.

Full lips only curved in a smug smile. "Heh. Well, what's the matter? Can't convince anyone that the featherduster's worth being 'more than friends' with?"

Airazor twisted her own lips in a sneer. "Hardly. What's the matter, jealous that you and Tarantulas don't have half of what me and Tigatron do?"

"I—how dare—I'll—"

"Awwww, poor deprived Predacon. Seriously, is there anyone in that base who gives a scrap about you?"

The mouth that opened to snap out an answer stayed open just a moment too long.

She caught the hesitation. "…isn't there?"

"Slag you, Maximal." The spider turned her face, presenting an impassive profile while still keeping an eye on her captive. "Just had a sudden thought that was more important than…whatever it was that you said."

A touch of pity entered blue optics. She could guess what kind of thought it was, even as her more cynical side told her not to assume that any Predacon could be that unaware of her own faction. Before she could stop herself, an impulse made her blurt out, "I keep asking myself, wondering how—"

"What's it like being the only female Maximal?"

"—alright, I guess."

"I've noticed that there's this kind of expectation when you're a femme, at least in my experience. Everyone else can get along fine on their own, but we're expected to hook up with someone. They think that romance is ingrained in females. I'm sure you know what I mean." Black optics turned back to study her slyly, and neither of them showed relief at missing whatever it was Airazor had been about to say. "After all, why else does everyone assume that you have to be with Tigatron?"

Under the surface, those unspoken words mixed her up inside with what had been spoken, and blue met black with all the confusion of a cornered raptor. Her wounded wing spasmed, burning her with forgotten pain as her instinctive, baffled flight-or-fight reflex kicked in. She wanted to fly away, fly high and far until the sun and rain had taken all the words away. "It's all my fault," she blurted out, for a bare moment completely honest about something that nobody else had bothered to probe. "He told me he wanted me so much—that is, he told Cheetor that he wanted 'her' so much and I assume that I wasn't meant to overhear because I'm pretty sure I'm the 'her' he was talking about, but I never told him that he's just a good friend so everyone keeps on thinking that we're closer than we are, even him, because I just don't want to hurt him and I'm afraid of what they'll think of me." She closed her mouth with a snap, stunned at the rush of words she hadn't even realized were waiting to get out.

"But you said he was afraid to get close," Blackarachnia prodded after the falcon had stared at her for too long.

She looked away. "I never said he wasn't trying. People tend to do stuff even though they're frightened, you know."

The widow actually laughed at that. "You're so ashamed of admitting that you don't want to be tied down to him!" she exclaimed, an almost vicious delight filling her words. "Can't we be single? I don't care if they stop and stare at me for saying it: I don't feel any more need for one of them than they feel for each other!"

Airazor blinked up at her. "Each other..?"

"Slaggit, if they don't have to fall in love, why should we?" The spider flung out the pincer not holding a weapon on the Maximal. "Look at me! What do you see, huh? Have I lost my mind? Do you," her voice dropped down to a sinister whisper, but this time Airazor thought that her malice was directed at someone other than her. "Do YOU ever think that you'll be free from it? Free from the pressure they don't even consciously know they're putting on us, the pressure to declare that we're head-over-heels for one of them, and I keep thinking—" Blackarachnia stopped suddenly, those full lips clamped shut on whatever it was that she had been about to admit. This time it had been her that had crossed the line, and deep in her black eyes there was an appalled Predacon frantically trying to think of a way to cover her slip. "Thinking that it doesn't matter," she continued, trying to smooth it over. "It's just a gender difference, really. It's just a social expectation built in from who-knows-when. When you think about it, we're really just machines. Why do we even HAVE genders, anyway?"

But the falcon knew it had been Blackarachnia who had spoken, not the arrogant Predacon she met on the battlefield. "Ever tried to pretend that it doesn't matter? Try to forget that you're female?"

The Predacon faltered. What did honesty matter now? For Primus' sake, she had the Maximal at gunpoint; it wasn't like she was going to run off and tell anyone! For that matter, why would it matter if she did? "It might not be that difficult for you," she said snidely, thrusting her chest out, "but I've got a lot more evidence to ignore."

Airazor stomped on the absurd surge of envious anger that flashed through her. "Why exactly," she mused out loud, blue optics meeting black in defiant curiosity, "do we care about who has bigger breasts? For something purely cosmetic, I can't figure out why I compare mine to yours and come up short." She took what pleasure she could in seeing the surprised realization spread across the widow's face. "It's stuff like that that drive me crazy when I try and figure it out," she said softly.

Blackarachnia blinked at her from behind her gun. For all her surprise, the sights didn't waver from the Maximal's forehead. "Like you're going out of your head just trying to think about it," she said just as quietly, trying out the feel of the words never said aloud. "But I'm not like you, featherhead. I'd never let myself be…assumed into a relationship I didn't want."

She lowered her optics. She knew what the widow meant. Everyone's assumptions about her and Tigatron, and she'd never get the courage to speak against what's assumed…and she'd end up in a relationship because it was expected. Everything Blackarachnia had said was true if she could only admit it to herself, but even if she didn't, the words would keep running through her head.

Seeing it in the blue optics staring at the ground, the gun finally wavered. Because for every feeling she'd finally put into words, there were a dozen more still waiting to be said. Blackarachnia wondered with a distant uneasiness if she'd ever be able to say them if they were snapped at this Maximal she held prisoner; a predator/prey exchange full of bared fangs and claws that sliced away all the social lies told to conceal a truth no one wanted to say out loud. Here, in the cave formed by an overhanging rock, the sound of them echoed until she wanted to slam her head against the ground to get rid of them. Running, creeping, shouting into the abrupt silence of her thoughts, and they weren't enough. They were just words, just simple words, and Predacons were made for action.

Carefully, hesitantly, unsure of exactly what she was doing, the widow leaned forward. Airazor looked up sharply into her face, and in her optics there was that yearning for that something they shared. Blue glass took in the empty space where there had been a gun pointed at her head, and also the body filling that space. There was uncertainty, a brief moment of wondering what they were doing, and the falcon tilted her body away from her sore side. Leaning forward, they looked each other in the face as if for the first time, bared spark to bared spark.

"I want to fly us away somewhere where faction doesn't matter," Airazor murmured sadly. She only smiled slightly when the widow seemed unable to follow her line of thought.

"But it always matters," Blackarachnia said slowly. "You can never be free of it, just as we can't stop being females." Without conscious thought, she had lowered herself to her knees, leaning forward over the Maximal sitting on the ground. Feathers sticky with mechfluid ruffled and smoothed on the falcon's wings as Airazor gradually moved to meet her halfway. "It'll always be there…"

Blue optics, so close to black, dimmed with realization. "Between us," Airazor whispered…and she punched Blackarachnia square in the nose.

* * *

* * *

_It was supposed to be different than this, but I understood this plot more. I don't like using the inside thoughts of characters like 'I'm thinking this' during a scene, but since I'm specifically including lyrics from the song "All The Things She Said" by Tatu in the writing it seemed appropriate. It's odd looking at Blackarachnia from this perspective. Seriously, who thinks about her as a vulnerable person before Silverbolt falls in love with her? She's a cynical, bad-aft example of a heartless Predacon. And it's hard giving Airazor more than a 2D personality._

_In any case, I believe this idea was spawned by someone saying she'd never seen a Blackarachnia/Airazor romance before. Plus, it annoys me that every female character must pair off with someone._


	3. Lost Faith

**Lost Faith**

* * *

He started out looking down, unwilling to face the inevitable. His voice started out just as hesitantly, as if it was something that needed to be said, but he was still reluctant to say it. "I know your secret, you know." 

"I know I seem too slow sometimes to catch on, but I've been around you long enough to clue in. You've got two personalities, whether or not you admit it to yourself. You're the commander and the 'bot, the tyrant and the person; you're my friend, but you're my superior officer, too." He shifted his feet, uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation but plowing onward anyway. "You never wanted to admit that you were my friend. To be perfectly honest, I'm not so great about bringing it up, either. It's just too personal for ideal Predacons to be talking about, and you've always been one for the ideal. Your ideal doesn't always match everyone else's, but I've tried to live up to it. I've been a good officer, I like to think, and I've been it for you, my commander. Not for my friend, but for the one who gives me orders and expects me to be the ideal for him."

He raised his visor a little, half-smiling at remembered times. "It wasn't easy, but it was. I mean, I'm not the brightest 'bot on Cybertron, and it was kind of nice to know exactly what I was supposed to do and think. You're a tyrant, and you can be one hard taskmaster, but all you ever expected of me was that I follow you loyally and keep your back covered. I've done a pretty good job of it."

Now he looked to the side, avoiding any commitment to eye contact. "Things changed, though. I always knew that my commanding officer wasn't my friend, but I never realized how much you separated each side of yourself until one day you turned up with this scheme to take over the universe. As a tyrant, you ordered me to follow you. As my friend, you asked me to believe that you could achieve the impossible. I could see the struggle; you were trying to become something that combined a friend and an officer. You were trying to become one of those 'bots that lead entire armies into the Pit by pure force of personality, not a friend but more than just a commander. You were trying to achieve an ideal, the perfect Predacon leader, and you thought you had a cause."

His visor shifted to the other side, but higher, as if he gathered courage from his own words. "You thought you could reconcile the differences between your two personalities and become the leader you idolized. I followed you because I thought for a time that you could do it. I thought that maybe you could BE the leader."

He sighed. "I was wrong."

"I tried to give you time. I really did. As a friend, I tried to believe in what you said, but every day I see you becoming more and more just my commander. You've become a tyrant ordering me to follow a dream that you'll never be able to complete. You've lost the other side of your personality, buried under an officer, and without that part of you...I realized the impossibility of your schemes. There's no inspiration in your plots; just violence and orders, threats that don't make me believe. Maybe it's time you think about it yourself."

He looked up now to face the consequences. "I'm not saying you're a bad commander. I'm just saying that you're not my friend anymore, and ALL you are is a commander. I'll follow you, but I won't surrender my spark and body to your control, believing in your cause. If you can accept that, maybe you can accept that trying to conquer the universe is a worthless goal for you. You should find a higher cause, or another dream to throw your lot in with. Your dream is futile, but you're a good commander. There has to be someone else you believe in..?"

The worst over, he waited and ran his words over in his mind. No, he should have said something different. Something more persuasive and less offensive. The problem was that there was no way to phrase it any less bluntly. He's tried to say that they weren't anything but officer-commander anymore, but he's still trying to give advice.

He could feel the rebuking stare, and he met his reflection's gaze ruefully. "Maybe tomorrow," Scorpinok said to the mirror, "I'll tell him."

And elsewhere in the Predacon base, Megatron shut off the surveillance monitor and leaned back in his throne. Only his beast mode's head knows what thoughts ran behind his dimmed optics.

* * *

* * *

_As much as I like mocking Scorpinok, the guy was a tragic character. The thing is, he was probably the closest to Megatron because of his loyalty, as a follower and perhaps a friend. Yet he was a scientist, so he had to be intelligent. Somewhere along the line, he had to have had doubts._


	4. Familiar Disaster

**Familiar Disaster**

* * *

It was one of those weird things in life. One of those things that always seemed to pop up unexpectedly, but with a sort of tired familiarity that called up memories of past instances. Everyone had them, even if they didn't recognize them until later, and every once and a while everyone sits back for a moment and wonders at it. Why? Why that, why them, and why, by Primus, why THEN? Why right in front of so-and-so, who would never in a million stellar cycles let them forget about it?

Terrorsaur, well, he knew it as soon as it happened, every time. It wasn't even surprising anymore. There wasn't any logical reason for it, or at least no reason that HE'D been able to think of, and he was getting used to it. Sure, sometimes it was painful and all-around humiliating, but it never did any permanent damage. He'd had his suspicions that it was a psychological problem at some point, but the whole crash on Earth had pretty much put that idea to rest. He KNEW that hadn't been his fault, no matter what Megatron had tried to pin on him. And this latest incident had sealed it; there was no way on Earth he would have been able to predict a lightening strike. Getting fried had NOT been on his to-do list today!

He sighed and inched himself up into a sitting position. Communication systems were shot, his gun was probably in a hole somewhere, his jets were out, and his beast mode's wings were burnt clear through. To top off his damage list, he had some nasty electrical burns on his posterior, not helped in the least by the fact that he'd crashed onto the top of a shale cliff and skidded all the way to the bottom. It MIGHT have been more painful to have just hit the bottom in the first place, but too late now...

Thunder crashed overhead, and the rain that had been threatening all day finally came pouring down. He made a face at the sky and climbed to his feet, wincing all the way. Next time he opted for a perimeter patrol over facing Megatron in a bad mood, he'd pick Megatron. At least someone would come looking for his pieces in the base. As it was, he was stuck out here like a crispy red target for the Maximals. He hoped fervently that all of them had stayed inside, away from the rain. Oh, well, it wasn't like this was something new. Might as well get as far as he could before the energon forced him to transform back to his beast mode.

Terrorsaur started limping home.

.

* * *

* * *

_This actually was the beginning of the project, I think. Stuff falls apart, and then you look back at it and think the whole thing was awfully familiar._


	5. Sleeper

**Sleeper**

* * *

_"Now I lay me down to sleep,  
I pray the Lord my soul to keep."_

* * *

The first thing he remembered feeling was uncertainty. He remembered being confused a lot, and he was remarkably docile for a long time, but he only knew that in brief flashes that weren't really connected coherently. He wasn't even sure that they were real memories as opposed to his frequent dreams, so he dismissed them. Therefore, his first real memory was that of staring at the door to his cell, feeling uncertain. He knew it was a real memory because he could still feel the metal floor under the palms of his hands, the cold of the wall at his back. He'd been in a corner, protecting his back as best he could. He remembered the uncertainty of knowing that the next experiment could come from anywhere at anytime, and this one he might not survive. The corner wasn't any safer than the middle of the room, but even a science-made spark had instincts, and one of the first that made itself known was the urge to seek as much safety as he could fool himself into believing. The wall was a cold presence at his back, and that gave him the illusion of solidity, that nothing would attack him from that angle. It limited the options of approach to his front. 

He couldn't quite remember why he was so wary at the time, but from later experience it was because nothing that came through that door or from the walls was ever anything but painful. He didn't like pain. It hurt. The 'bots that hurt him didn't seem to care that he hurt, however. They poked and prodded, and he screamed or stared uncomprehendingly when they made noises at each other. He knew they were communicating, but they never tried to say anything to him. He was just there to be poked and prodded. He was unimportant. He barely existed. When they were done with him, they put him in a square metal box until they wanted to experiment on him next. He didn't understand them, or what they did. If he'd had any pride at all, it would have been humiliating. As it was, he was just confused most of the time, and often in pain.

So he put his back to the corner and felt uncertain. There was nothing secure in his life. The 'bots who opened the door and got him out changed from day to day. The 'bots who worked on him disappeared and reappeared erratically. He never knew what would be inflicted on him next. Sometimes they gestured and barked noises at him, and if he could figure out what they wanted, he'd obey. If he couldn't understand, or if they didn't consider him intelligent enough to warrant gestures, they'd grab a body part and use it to steer him. It had gotten to the point where he knew exactly how far forward he was supposed to walk when someone shoved him in the small of the back, or where he was supposed to stay if they turned him by his arm. The one time he'd resisted (at least, the one time he could remember), whimpering and cringing at the sight of a machine that had ripped open his chest to rake over the spark inside, they had used short rods to shock his limbs to limp quivering, then restrained him. He hadn't tried again after that. He REALLY didn't like pain.

Sometimes he woke up in different places than where he'd lost consciousness last. Sometimes it was the pain that had knocked him out, and he'd be back in his cell when he struggled out of the nightmare of memories. Sometimes strange gasses had come from the walls, and he'd wake up strapped down on a table, either ready for a new experiment or left wondering if they'd finished what they wanted to do already. He never recharged naturally unless exhaustion forced him to it; he'd woken to find himself outside the cell with no idea how he'd been taken out far too often. It wasn't paranoia if it was real. He at least wanted to see them coming.

But he never knew when they'd come, and he never knew what experiment was next. He knew he was unimportant. He was just another 'bot to poke and prod, like the empty shells he sometimes replaced on the table. One day, he'd be just like them, hollowed out by the pain until they took out his spark, and even then he didn't know if he'd escape the agony. If he went into recharge now, would he wake up again? For today, he'd have to risk it. He was too tired to stay awake much longer.

In his corner, young and uncertain, Protoform X heaved a sigh and slowly let his systems shut down. He hoped he'd wake up again, but foremost in his mind was the vague wish that if he didn't, he at least wouldn't feel it when the 'bots took his spark away.

.

* * *

.  
_"And if I die before I wake,  
I pray the Lord my soul to take."_

* * *

* * *

_You know, I don't think anyone's taken quite this angle on Rampage before. It took me by surprise, anyway, and I didn't think I had that in me for Rampage stories anymore. This Rampage has a wary, uncertain side to him. No, he's not afraid, but he's young and keen on avoiding pain. This side of him hasn't learned that if he deals out the pain first, they can't hurt him. He hasn't learned to be anything but a science experiment yet._

_He will, though, when the sleeper awakens._


	6. Duty Calls

**Duty Calls**

* * *

Terrorsaur was bored.

Well, not really bored in the strict sense of 'I have nothing to do.' He was bored as in he had just enough time to start something before his shift began, but not enough time to complete it. So he was reviewing the things he COULD do, opening programs and closing them again on the computer and counting down the time until his shift. Not enough time to actually patrol, but he'd gone through the base's entertainment programs twice already today. Now he was just mindlessly clicking through them and wishing he had more or less time, either to get out of the base or have duties he could lose himself in.

That's about when he realized that his main source of amusement was missing. It was strange that he hadn't noticed it before, actually. The more he thought about it the less he liked the idea. Waspinator hadn't just left; he'd snuck off. Therefore, he hadn't WANTED to be noticed. And therefore--

"Slag."

Suddenly, he wasn't bored anymore. Waspinator was off getting into trouble, and it was up to Terrorsaur to drag him out of it by his wings. Technically it wasn't really in his job description, but his excuse was that it was easier to hide Waspinator from Megatron's wrath than deal with the mess afterward. Besides, it was better than staring at the computer screen.

The pterodactyl stood up and stretched out the kinks, musing on where he should start the search this time. He could gamble that Waspinator hadn't sneaked away long ago and was still digging out a secret stash of sugar somewhere in the base. That could be a dead end and lead to Waspinator buzzing around like a drunken bumblebee somewhere outside until Megatron noticed he was missing and sent out someone to swat him. Or Terrorsaur could go check some of the local flower patches he knew the wasp was magnetically attracted to. After what the hyperactive little menace had done to the Predacon tyrant's throne last time, he didn't think even Waspinator was silly enough to stick around the base on one of his sugar-binges again. Getting punched through a couple walls tended to knock sense into the dumbest of 'bots.

He rubbed his head ruefully. Yeah...

Of course, chasing down Waspinator would probably end up taking more time than a regular patrol would. Megatron would pitch a fit if he found out that Terrorsaur had gone after the errant wasp, but Terrorsaur also knew that he'd end up feeling guilty when the tyrant went after Waspinator himself. Somewhere along the line--and slag if he knew when--he'd grown to like the immature moron. But blast it all if he'd admit it!

Which meant that he'd just have to disguise retrieving his friend as what he did best: slacking off. Who needed monitor duty, anyway? He'd just do the responsible thing and cheerfully send Scorpinok a note informing him of the unofficial day off. After he was already a few miles from the base, that is.

An evil grin split his face as he headed toward the nearest base exit.

* * *

.

* * *

_During war, soldiers seeks all kinds of highs. Waspinator likes flower-derived sugars. Terrorsaur likes annoying Scorpinok. It seems to work for them._


	7. All Creatures Great and Small

**All Creatures Great and Small**

* * *

The Maximals found, after a few weeks on the planet, that their beast modes had instincts they couldn't ignore. Rattrap ate garbage. Optimus Primal had an unavoidable banana obsession. Rhinox liked to graze for hours while he thought. Dinobot tried to eat Rattrap--well, okay, he blamed his beast mode for that, but nobody really believed him.

Cheetor's beast mode had a more amusing habit, or at least so Rattrap claimed. Optimus wasn't so amused, but he seemed to be the cheetah's favored victim, so maybe that was understandable. Cheetor would hide behind one of the base supports and look bashful whenever caught, but Primal always had the feeling that he wasn't listening to his lectures. It was just the way that spotted tail would move--flick flick flick--that made him suspicious. He actually said so once.

"But Big Bot," the cat said meekly, tail flicking (flick flick flick), "there's a mouse right behind you."

The ape turned around and, sure enough, there was a field mouse. It was industriously eating a piece of cheese. Primal resolved to tell Rattrap to clean up after himself as the local wildlife was getting positively obese off the rat's refuse. He also resolved to NOT hold these lectures outdoor as Cheetor shot by him in a spotted blur to chase this particular part of the obese local wildlife. It wasn't much of a contest as the mouse could probably have rolled faster than it ran, and Primal put his face in his hand as the cat trotted back to--once again--proudly lay the pudgy mouse at his feet.

"You've got to stop this, Cheetor!"

Cheetor's eyes flattened, and he looked up at his hero/leader with pitiful eyes. "I can't help it, honest!" he wailed. "I just walk outside, and suddenly I'm chasing something small and fuzzy! It's just--just FUN, Big Bot!" He truly did look pathetic, all kittenish and pleading, and Optimus knew his willpower was crumbling as fast as he could scrape it up. He tried to remember the tiny pile of small and furry creatures left outside his door this morning and the unpleasantly squishy way he'd encountered said pile. It had made a mess of his foot and the floor. Rattrap had laughed himself off his chair when he'd seen.

But…kitten eyes…

"Keep them OUTSIDE, Cheetor," the Maximal leader said with the grimness of the terminally cuteness-crippled. "I understand that your beast mode has instincts, but I don't appreciate you depositing them around me." Desperation seized his spark as Cheetor looked, all despondent, at the dead bit of fluff he'd already laid at his commanding officer's feet. "Why don't you give them to Dinobot?" Dinobot didn't like anything, he reasoned, so what did it matter if Cheetor gave him dead little animals? The ex-Predacon was permanently grumpy, anyway.

Two days later, Optimus Primal was ruing his words.

He stood paralyzed in the corridor, unable to look away from what he knew was about to happen. Part of him was screaming to interfere and yell either a warning or a reprimand. The other part of him seemed incapable of repressing the sheer, gleeful hilarity of the moment. Ahead of him, Cheetor's tail swayed, the end flick-flick-flicking, and the cat advanced another silent step into the main bridge room. Across the room, the small and fuzzy victim being stalked glanced around, perhaps warned by the instincts tiny, crunchy prey animals usually had.

Cheetor struck!

Some evil piece of Primal's psyche cheered.

"'EY! Lemme go, ya dumb cat! Hey! HEY!"

On the one hand, Optimus thought later when the damage to the base had been repaired and he'd lectured the miscreants appropriately, he'd never heard the language that had come out of Rattrap's mouth anywhere but the docks before. It had been quite educational. On the other hand, he'd never seen Dinobot laugh that hard before. Even Rhinox had smiled when Cheetor had faithfully dragged one rumpled and swearing rat by him on the way to the raptor's door. The cat had adhered to the letter of the law, if not the spirit, and seemed very proud of himself for it.

Optimus figured the Maximals had come out about even on this one.

Weeks later, Cheetor had graduated in the self-taught predators' school from chasing scurrying things to catching birds. They were far more difficult to stalk and kill, and Primal--and Rattrap--had breathed a sigh of relief. For such a energenic kid, Cheetor would spend an inordinate amount of time lying in wait for innocent feathered creatures. That was time Rattrap had one less many-fanged animal after his tail and Optimus didn't have to keep an eye out for stashed critters somewhere in his room. He'd given up on getting the cat to stop. Really, it was harmless. Besides, Cheetor had gotten very clever at hiding his prizes. That sometimes meant Primal would smell something rotting long before he found it. At least the feathers usually gave away such, ah, feline tokens of affection before they decayed.

Then came the day Cheetor caught something for Rhinox.

"Big--stay still! Stay--Birrg Bfrrt! Brrfg Bffrt!"

Alarmed by the muffled shouts, Primal stepped outside his quarters and found himself enveloped by a fuzzy cyclone of spots. "Cheetor! What in Primus' name do you think you're doing?!"

Kitten cuteness had disappeared in a series of adorable but unmistakably frustrated sounds all along the lines of "Mrowr!" "Ffffft!" and "Hiissssss!" as Cheetor wrestled around him on the floor. He appeared to be trying to keep a hold on something with fluttering wings, but for the life of him, Primal couldn't make out what it was. His first thought was irritation because he'd TOLD the cat to keep it outside. Hunting live prey in the base was NOT acceptable!

Then Cheetor managed to pin his prey down, and Primal lost his irritation along with his jaw. "A CyberBee!"

The cat spat out a wing. The 'Bee made an aggrieved sound and thrashed harder. "Yeah! It was outside the base, and I thought it was a bird!" Cheetor's wide eyes attested to his surprise when he'd pounced only to find the miniature Predacon machine. "Think Scorpinok's spying on us?"

"Let's find out," Primal said as he reached down to carefully pick up the disabled spy. He strode off toward Rhinox's lab but turned a few steps away. "Good job, Cheetor!"

Cheetor beamed happily. That was the last time anyone said anything against his beast mode's weird habits.

Weeks later, however, Tigatron did smile at Cheetor and say, "I can catch my own birds, Little Cat."

The spotted cat hunched in on himself in the manner of the horribly embarrassed. "I know," he said meekly. "She was just…there." He wouldn't meet their eyes. "Sorry."

At least Airazor took it well.

Months later, and Cheetor knew he shouldn't. He really shouldn't. But he had gotten excellent at stalking small and furry things, and birds weren't hard at all anymore, and he was bored. Bored cats found ways to entertain themselves. It didn't help that he was hungry, too. Plus, he'd been experimenting with fishing before Megatron had forced the Maximals to relocate far away from a convenient river. That had been kind of fun. He'd wanted to try again but never found the time.

And Bit Bot HAD asked him to bring in their rather grouchy fellow Maximal…

Cheetor licked his chops as he stalked the unsuspecting raybot. Behind him, his tail moved.

Depth Charge glared. "Stop looking at me like that, cat."

Flick flick flick.

* * *

* * *

_My cat brings me chipmunks and birds. My mind made the sudden leap from housecat to cheetah, and viola! Cheetor bringing Optimus dead animals. Then I had a dream about Cheetor stalking Depth Charge, and, well...yeah._

_The point is that beast modes come fully loaded with things like hunting instincts. These things come out occasionally._


	8. Out of Context

**Out of Context**

* * *

He knew no words to describe the beauty of this planet. He could say it was awesome, majestic, quirky, sweeping...but in the end he knew that no thousand words of his could describe even a single-frame picture of this place adequately. The flood of adjectives and nouns were not enough to convey the tiny sparkling lakes tucked away in the artic north, little vales of paradise hidden in the glacier-tortured landscape of tossed rocks and twisted shrubs. No mere sentence of his could begin to shine with the variety of colors found in a simple sunset at the end of the day. His vocabulary would not drown the listener in the deluge of a morning's pounding rain, and that would be the only way it would be sufficient. Unless he could invent words that would immerse his audience into this world of deep, crystal green seas and skies of spacious blue, they would not be enough.

That was the problem, wasn't it? The words he needed were not those Cybertron had ever needed to invent. Oh, yes, Transformers had visited Earth before, and perhaps some of this spectacular beauty had found its way into the local tongue of the world, but he seriously doubted that much had remained of it by that time. If he remembered his history correctly, by that time humanity had been convinced it was separate and above this mudball they owned. By that time, they were wreaking as much havoc upon the world as the Decepticons ever had. He wasn't surprised that his words were lacking; they were spawned in cities and metal, and not meant to be forced upon another world so different than their beginnings. Cybertron, for all its stark lines and precision building, had not a fraction of the--the SOMETHING he found by standing in the shadow of a haunting, tangled tree as a nearly full moon rose.

Yet for all the lack, he could only shudder at the abundance in his language. Words of hatred, war, and anger poured from metallic lips, shaped by a world born into slavery. How strange words of gentle admiration felt as they were shaped by his tongue! What shame he felt that he could relate a battle with heartrending detail and still be unable to describe the breathtaking joy of standing at the sandy edge of a cliff overlooking a shimmering ribbon of river winding through the midst of a desert. He couldn't decide if it invoked pity or horror that sorrow and fury could be painted into nauseous life before his mind's eye using effortless words, but once he left this planet he would have naught but a fading memory trapped in his head. Mouth agape helplessly, he would try to tell of the happiness the sight of sunlight piercing through a cloud could bring, but the words would stick in his throat and fail to illustrate the picture only he'd be able to see.

If psychologists said the hallmark of intelligent thinking was the ability to think in words instead of images, he felt sorry for those who truly believed that definition. Without a proper language to think in, there was no other way to remember his time on Earth. To try and exchange such stunning splendor for words would only cheapen the end product, because there was no way to go back to conceiving the picture without the words attached afterward. Once labeled, the wild spontaneity that was part of this world's appeal would be tamed, and therefore what he saw in his mind would no longer be true to the original. He knew no language wide enough for a true trade; instead, he struggled with a tongue forced upon the world by those who wanted to reshape it under their control, robot or human. As he strained at the task, he suddenly realized that the hallmark of intelligent thinking was the ability to USE words…and to know when words were just a means of communication.

Tigatron smiled at the lush grass around his feet. He'd never be able to tell another why the sight of a field of vegetation filled him with wonder.

Some things had to be seen to believe.

* * *

* * *

_"I know no desert language. I struggle with a tongue forced on another continent, with words spawned in green forests under gray, soggy skies."  
_--Bowden 

_"Some memories you don't want to put words on…because that would change them…By naming the inexpressible, you lose it."_ --Edison Ripsborn


	9. Dutiful

**Dutiful **

* * *

He glared at the computer monitor as if it held all the secrets he'd like to pry from his current companion. Tarantulas, of course, blithely continued to fiddle around with his section of the computers, doing exactly what he was supposed to; that is, he worked on repairs, scanning, and other things he was supposed to do while on shift. Every once and a while, however, a maniacal chuckle would escape to let Scorpinok know that all was not right with his world. There were people manning the bridge stations. He was keeping an eye on the monitors and Tarantulas, the spider was working under his eye, and there was even a patrol of sorts going on outside. Megatron was off doing Megatron-ish things, which he was too much of a good little subordinate to inquire about after he'd accidentally overheard a song about rubber duckies. All SHOULD have been right with his world. That chuckling, though, told him that not only were things not right, they were going to the Pit on a hoverpad.

Scorpinok studied the computer monitor. It defiantly showed him only a section of the area surrounding the base, and he switched his gaze to another monitor in hopes of prying something loose from a new victim. No such luck. He was supposed to be OUT there right now, scuttling along over the ground and savoring the bit of freedom he was allowed away from the yammering idiots Megatron had dragged with them as cannon fodder. Sure he had to keep an optic out for the Maximals, but it was better than sorting out the latest scheme Tarantulas and Terrorsaur had dreamed up. But nooooo. Terrorsaur just HAD to skip out on his shift today, didn't he? He just HAD to be the scatter-brained nitwit who couldn't keep to a schedule like every other sane person. And better yet, he hadn't bothered to inform Scorpinok of playing hooky until he was far enough away from the base that a well-timed CyberBee couldn't harass him back into line, which left Scorpinok--oh joy!--to cover his shift. AGAIN. With Tarantulas, of all the misshapen, megalomaniac 'bots in the base! He hadn't needed this today, nooo, he really hadn't. Oh, great. He was starting to pick up Megatron's speech habits. Slag.

The monitors, he could have sworn, were laughing at him. Wait--had that been Waspinator buzzing by on the far right? Surely that blur had been yellow and black striped. Ah, yes. That was Terrorsaur speeding after him, a half-amused, half-exasperated look on his face as his jets blasted away in an effort at keeping up. Hmmm, the infamous sugar high versus jet propulsion. Scorpinok had to bet his money on Waspinator for this one. Well, that would explain the sudden abandonment by Terrorsaur, anyway. If someone didn't go after Waspinator right after he got started on one of his sugar binges, there was no hope of catching the wasp without some kind of violence and usually total disassembly. The tactical Predacon in Scorpinok mumbled something about having Waspinator in the CR Tanks all the time was a disadvantage if the Maximals would suddenly attack. The cynical Predacon in Scorpinok noted wryly that he just couldn't stand how Waspinator whined about getting blown up. The sympathetic Predacon in Scorpinok winced at the thought of Megatron shooting the poor wasp down again just for having a little fun. The loyal Predacon in Scorpinok figured that it was better that Terrorsaur went after the pest before Megatron had to be bothered over it.

The paranoid Predacon that was Scorpinok gave the monitors a suspicious look as Tarantulas chuckled for no reason anyone else could see. The monitors blandly displayed what they always displayed, not giving an inch. He knew they knew something.

So, Terrorsaur had gone after Waspinator, hmm? Scorpinok knew how that worked, and he knew how he was supposed to play along like he DIDN'T know. Waspinator snuck off; Terrorsaur took off to rescue him from Megatron's future wrath. Being, however, both Terrorsaur and a Predacon, there wasn't any way in the Pit that the pterodactyl would actually outright do anything like that. Therefore, he'd slacked off in a normal, accepted fashion. Well, as accepted as a dereliction of duty was around here. Scorpinok would wait patiently, covering the delinquent's shift until he got back, and then he'd chew the birdbrain out with a lecture to end all lectures. Then he'd tell Megatron, who might just chew on the slacker. After some shameless groveling on Terrorsaur's part, he'd be allowed to go repair himself. The point, of course, was that he'd get the slag beat out of him for abandoning his station, NOT for chasing after Waspinator. This, in a sneaky, round-about kind of way, preserved his macho Predacon self-image and saved Waspinator from yet another trip to the CR Tanks. Because Primus forbid that of all Predacons, TERRORSAUR might actually have a friend. Predacons weren't supposed to have friends. Predacons were supposed to be tough, selfish, self-sufficient, completely rabid killers kept only from the Maximals' throats by a thin leash of control supposedly held by Megatron.

But Scorpinok knew, and Tarantulas knew, and Waspinator knew, and, slag, probably even the monitors knew, that Terrorsaur wasn't really slacking off today. When it came down to it, the only one who didn't know was Megatron, and he wouldn't lay any money on that. They'd play the game, though, and pretend that they didn't know. He scowled. This didn't mean, even while he pretended that he didn't know the real reason Terrorsaur had skipped his shift, that his anger was faked. Terrorsaur was going to get his wings clipped when he dared show them around here next!

The monitors were STARING at him. Tarantulas chuckled.

Scorpinok suppressed a twitch.

.

* * *

.

* * *

.  
_Scorpinok must hate pulling a shift with Tarantulas. The idea of Scorpinok being paranoid makes me laugh. Plus, I like giving the bad guys personalities, then all the reasoning behind why the Evil Predacons (TM) don't show them._


	10. Strength in Numbers

**Strength in Numbers**

* * *

The moves were natural, as instinctive as his beastmode but ingrained instead of inborn, beaten into metal resistant to change. It flexed and relaxed in a set pattern memorized through brute force, one of many patterns meant to be used in a greater rhythm, that of a strategy harnessing and controlling the power behind an individual warrior.

For that was the ultimate goal of the training, no matter how each 'bot approached it. Solitary fighter or a soldier absorbed into an army, they learned the moves and became part of a larger class, the warrior class, distinguished only by their grasp on the situation. The lowest Predacon cannon fodder was not set apart by his pinpoint accuracy with a gun, but rather by his knowledge of when and how to use his ability. The highest rank was little more than a minor achievement if one lost that tenuous hold on the ultimate pattern, that intangible thing behind every action.

Honor, to a true warrior, was what held the movement together.

The point of his sword impaled his shadow, and he nodded with somewhat lackluster satisfaction. He had salvaged his honor. The exercise was no challenge, nothing but a reminder at this point of the perfection he strove for. He was, for all intents and purposes, a warrior. He was part of a more important body, however much he insisted on his individuality.

Yet as he slowly sank down onto his berth, head cradled in his hands and sword hilt held to his forehead, he wearily wondered if it was worth it. He had his honor, his warrior status...but he was the only one on this world who could truthfully say such a thing. The Maximals were naive and weak, refusing to put forth the effort needed to reforge themselves into something more than their petty goals and worries. For short times he could lose himself in their false friendship, but after a while he would find himself alone, with no one who understood what he yearned to achieve. It was not their shallow companionship he wished for; it would not last. He wanted camaraderie. He longed for another blade to complete the other half of the pattern, to change the rhythm completely in a planned attack on his concentration, a challenge he couldn't ignore, a 'bot he could respect.

But there were none here, and it was becoming increasingly tempting to forget his training and allow the vapid Maximals to fill the gap inside him with inane banter and wishy-washy morals. When that happened, he would lose the bigger picture and be left with nothing but the empty exercises.

He rose in tired determination, not because he wanted to, but because he had to. He was something different, a warrior separated from his comrades, and he would not succumb.

So he planted his feet and began again. The moves came easily, a well-worn reminder that he didn't fight alone.

* * *

.

* * *

_The idea of Dinobot of fighting off depression by clinging to his honor. That's it._


	11. Trauma

**Trauma**

* * *

Sometimes, he remembered.

The others assumed that just because he didn't say anything, he was back to normal. Terrorsaur had treated him strangely for a day or two, and Megatron had smashed him through a few walls out of frustration, but Blackarachnia, Scorpinok, and Tarantulas had each given him a disgusted glare and gone on their ways. He was Waspinator, bumbling Predacon extraordinaire; being possessed was just one new event in a series that got him dissembled at the end of the night. Starscream came and went, leaving nothing but ruffled tempers and property damage in his wake. The Predacons thought about Waspinator's brief stint as a traitor as being Starscream's fault.

Well, it was…but not entirely. The Decepticon had been very good at possession, throwing Waspinator out of control of his body, but the wasp was an old hand at being blown up, shot apart, and otherwise losing all feeling to his extremities. The jet kicked him out of the driver's seat, but Waspinator stayed conscious.

And he stayed quiet.

He could have struggled. He could have fought the Air Commander for each twitch of their fingers, each word that came out of their vocalizer, but he didn't. He stayed in the back of his own head, watching quietly as the Decepticon did what he'd always wanted to do. Starscream defeated the Maximals, betrayed Megatron, and had the power and cunning to actually hold on to his plans. He SUCEEDED. He accomplished what Megatron hadn't been able to do, then rightfully tried to take over the faction from that failure of a leader. In the end he failed himself, but up until the moment of Blackarachnia's betrayal, Starscream was victorious. No matter if he'd retreated to fight another day--he had the sheer power to win that fight. He was the Decepticon Air Commander. He'd lived millions of years and defied death. Even as a spark, he persevered.

Waspinator knew this because Starscream knew this, and that was the problem. Waspinator, unlike the others Starscream had possessed, had the ability to resist. He hadn't used it because he'd wanted the jet to win. In his shell, the spark of a Decepticon made him into someone he'd always wanted to be. Sometimes he envied Terrorsaur the courage it took to backstab and defy Megatron, and for once he had that courage. A traitor, yes, and a coward, but weren't all Predacons? They respected power and the audacity to seize it, and that's what Starscream did. And, quietly, Waspinator had explored the old Transformer's mind while Starscream had taken his place in the body shell. He hadn't fought, but he had to know who this 'bot was that had taken him over.

Mind to mind, he hadn't watched Starscream's memories. He'd lived them. He'd fired null rays on Optimus Prime, screamed out of the sky with his wingmates, shouted insults at Megatron. He'd hated and ached and feared. He'd been Starscream, a spark of fiery lust for power and chilling deception. Mind to mind, he'd slipped into the burning presence inside his body and ceased to be Waspinator.

Later, he wondered if that's what had caused some of Starscream's flawed reasoning, but as the jet ripped away and left him desolately in control again, all he'd cared about was that once again he was only Waspinator. Just a failed attempted at a Predacon warrior, too cowardly to ever walk away from a direct order or try to find power in his own right. The explosion hadn't hurt as much as that realization. The others had been relieved to have the old expendable, dependable Waspinator back. He'd let them think that because he'd made himself forget that wild flight of merging. He'd forgotten, and he'd gone back to normal. It was either that, or go insane.

Because sometimes, he remembered what it had been like to be Starscream. Something would whisper in the back of his mind of what he'd been, to be full of defiance and his own glory, and the confident power to back that arrogance up. It mesmerized him, that whispering, that feeling. He reveled in that memory, wishing desperately that he could be…could be, just once…

Waspinator knew he never could, and he hated himself for that.

But sometimes, he remembered.

* * *

.

* * *

_I very badly wanted to get Waspinator's feelings down on this one. Being possessed must have been traumatic, but nobody ever seemed to care that Waspinator had been taken over. Later on in the series, Waspinator really does defy Megatron, and I kinda have to wonder where he got the courage from..._


	12. Running Through My Head

**Running Through My Head**

* * *

The first thing Blackarachnia was aware of was the darkness.

No, to be completely correct she would have to say that the first thing she was aware of was the words still circling inside her scrambled mind. They tumbled and teased at the edges of her consciousness seconds before she tried to power up her optics. That's when she became aware of the darkness. She wouldn't have known that her optics were working correctly at all if there weren't error messages blaring against her vision. A faint frown pulled down at the edges of her lips, and she moved the information to rest in a corner where it wouldn't distract her. Most of the damage was minor, anyway…except for the injury to her head that had knocked her offline. To be honest, the reason she had pushed away the error messages was so she wouldn't have to remember the sickening crunch of caving metal as the falling rock hit her from above and behind.

A faint frown pulled down the ends of her lips as she remembered despite herself. The falcon had singled her out in the last engagement, and Megatron's bellowed orders to keep her busy had still been in effect at the end of the battle. At least, that was how she'd interpreted the situation, but that was because the Maximal had been losing at the time. A few well-timed blows had kept her from taking off to join her comrades or calling for help, and Blackarachnia had retreated quickly to keep the rest of the Maximals from finding her prize in the most obvious place. Instead of following Megatron back to the base, she'd dragged the falcon under an overhanging rock a couple miles off to one side and waited. The Maximals would either pursue the other Predacons or leave without even noticing Airazor's absence. It didn't matter to her, as long as she had the falcon to herself.

She could have killed her. She should have. But a desire for information and—to be blunt—an enjoyment of toying with her prey won out as the Maximal began to awaken. The situation was in her favor. Why shouldn't she enjoy herself?

The supposed interrogation had run downhill from there. Blackarachnia couldn't figure out why the Maximal's comments had gotten under her skin so easily, but they prodded at her control from all angles until she'd been almost been forced to act. The sudden attack by the falcon had taken her by surprise. She'd kicked away Airazor's gun before dragging her away from the battlefield, but they'd wrestled over her own gun like the falcon didn't have a broken wing and enough damage to need a CR Chamber. The spider had thrown her less experienced opponent, her skill in close combat more useful than aerial moves on the ground, but an awkward kick on Airazor's part had redirected the shot aimed at the falcon.

It had hit the rock ledge above them.

Now Blackarachnia lay in the darkness, her torso half-propped up by whatever she had landed on, and the words ran through her mind. All the things Airazor had said, more painful than she'd like to admit even in the depths of her spark, ran through her head as if they could distract her from the present. The words were interesting and the conversation required more attention, but they weren't enough. She couldn't help but read the error messages still vying for her attention.

What she read scared her. It scared her not in the sense of a battle rush, the fear for her life that kept her ultra-aware of every move around her; no, this was a fear of thinking _::I'm in serious slag,::_ and feeling totally lost. She could see, but there was no light at all to see anything with. She could move, but she didn't dare to. Her communication circuits sparked and fizzled when she tried to access them, but even if she could call for help she wouldn't because there was no one who'd answer. Worse yet, she was afraid of what would happen to her if one of the other Predacons did come. Rescue wasn't exactly a good thing if it was just a scavenging mission. _::Being with you has certainly opened my eyes, Maximal. Not that the facts changed any, but that I still believed somewhere in here that the facts weren't everything. The Predacons aren't a team that helps each other; we're cannibals, thrown together into a group and just waiting for someone to fall and begin the feeding frenzy. It took until you pointed that out for me to realize that I didn't want to believe that. I'd laugh at anyone else who put any faith in that slag. Could I ever believe such a perfect surprise about myself?::_

_::I wish I hadn't started thinking about this stuff before I split my head open. Closing my eyes isn't drastic enough to block her out.::_

Then why did she keep doing it?

She tried shifting an arm and gasped at the pain. Most of her spider legs were trapped underneath her. The fall must have twisted her around. She didn't think that she could free her right arm from the heavy weight it was lodged under, and she was laying on her other arm. After the flair of pain her attempt at moving had earned, she didn't even want to think about trying her legs.

The moisture she could feel slowly oozing onto her shoulder hadn't been there a moment ago.

_::What'd she say? Something about flying me away. Pfft. Right.:: _As if flying her away from the Beast Wars would make her any less of a Predacon. She'd DRAGGED the falcon away, and it was just the two of them. Had that made them any less of enemies? Captor and captive, as she'd waved a gun to remind the Maximal. Even with nobody else, even in a place without Megatron or Optimus Primal, they'd be free from obvious outside pressure and still obey the faction symbols they wore. _::I told you, birdbrain. I told you, and you didn't believe me. I'm not like you. I won't let myself be pinned down to one 'bot, even incorrectly. You said you weren't with Tigatron. Funny, I think you're the only one who was aware of it. I didn't let Tarantulas do that to me.::_

But even with all the things she'd said, the falcon hadn't listened. Or perhaps she'd listened, just as Blackarachnia had listened to what had been snapped back at her. Neither of them had shown any reaction to the words that were circling her mind now. The words that shouldn't have mattered as much as they did, speaking about Tigatron tying the flier down, and nobody even bothering to try with the Predacon. Words about why their gender made such a difference.

_::Why do I have to think about arguing with you now? Oh, that's right. I'm trying to distract myself. All the things you said keep running through my head, and it's not enough. You hear me, Airazor? This is not enough!::_

Stuck in the darkness, her only companion the slow creeping flow of her own mech-fluid winding a treacherous path down her body, Blackarachnia stared helplessly at the error messages lighting her vision. They blurred and wavered, the damage keeping pace with the leaking fluids. A gradual numbness began to tickle the tips of her pincers. It would have been a relief from the pain—the armor on her right leg must have cracked under the heavy rock that smashed it down—if she hadn't known it was a particularly bad sign. She thought desperately of shutting herself down into offline stasis, but that wouldn't stop the steady drain of her life from the mess the back of her head had become. At best, it would only make the end of her life more peaceful, her mind slipping free of the words running through it. She was a Predacon, however. The easy way out wasn't the way her programming would accept.

Yeah, well, sometimes her programming really sucked.

Blackarachnia crammed all the error warnings into one tiny corner of her vision. They buzzed annoyingly, not audibly but visually as the error sources slipped in and out of numbness, making the lights flicker rapidly like a fluorescent bulb on its last legs. With an effort, the spider ignored them enough to scroll back into functioning circuits and bring them up into the empty, dark area that she could see. Her limbs were becoming increasingly dysfunctional due to the pressure on top of them, but she couldn't move them anyway; regrettably, she moved them out of her vision. Communications went with them after a few minutes spent trying to bypass the malfunctioning parts of the remaining chips stuck in her open head. She felt a brief moment of relief that they hadn't worked before her more rational side pushed the glowing icons out of sight. She knew what Tarantulas would have done to her if her signal had been picked up, anyway. Better to die here in the numbing darkness than watched by the other Predacon.

Of course, she mused somewhat hysterically before she could quell the feeling, her signature would have acted as a beacon for anyone within range if she hadn't been intent on hiding Airazor from the Maximals. Enough rock and dirt could muffle a robot's signature unless the searcher was right on top of the quarry; that had been why she'd dragged the falcon under the rock ledge to begin with. Now she was buried under the blasted thing!

But…

"Hello?" The word was barely a rasp, but it cleared her air filters of the dust clogging them. Her next try was stronger, "Airazor?" Had the bird gotten free? She looked down her list of working circuitry and tweaked her sensors. They triggered a bright error message in return, this one pulsing fast enough that it felt like a loud shrill in the confusion of her damaged audios. She shoved it out of the list, wincing at the warning light. She was hearing sight—not good. "Airazor!" She couldn't sense anyone near, but that meant nothing. Maybe the Maximal was down here, maybe she'd been crushed, or maybe she was long gone. "Hello?"

Her words were a virulent yellow in the darkness of the cave-in. Kind of pretty, she thought in a detached kind of way. She realized she'd said it out loud when a few words of soft purple drifted over to twine with the yellow.

Words of red formed slowly to join them as she watched, error messages fading from her vision as she focused on the light show. It struck her suddenly that for all the lights, she still couldn't see anything. Her words were only in her split head, then. No…not her words. She read them, their taste bitter in her optics, and recognized Airazor's words. She shut her eyes but couldn't block them out.

It felt like déjà vu.

* * *

.

* * *

_I actually don't like this plotline of the ficlets much. No, that's not quite right: I have the feeling that the person who said there weren't any Blackarachnia/Airazor romances out there would dislike this plotline. I don't know...maybe my standards are lower._


	13. Lay the Dead Down

**Lay the Dead Down**

* * *

Cheetor asked Dinobot about war because Dinobot knew war.

That's how things around the base were. Cheetor looked up to Optimus Primal because Optimus Primal knew how to lead. He'd captained before and knew how to deal with wide-eyed younglings out on their first deployment. He never came out and said so, but Cheetor knew that Big Bot had fought before. It wasn't what he said that gave it away, but what he did. Captains of exploration ships didn't know how to fight wars without some kind of experience. Rhinox and Rattrap had that odd kind of experienced aura hanging about them, too, the kind that nobody talked about but he'd figured out was there by just sitting back and observing. Peacetime science officers didn't invent things to counteract weapons of war right off the bat. Rattrap, braggart that he was, never actually mentioned how exactly he got so good at espionage and sabotage working on exploration missions. Subjects mysteriously changed whenever Cheetor tried to directly ask any of his three crewmates about these things.

Young and ignorant he might be, but eventually Cheetor got the point. There were some things the crew of the Axalon didn't talk about to their youngest member, and war was one of them. So when Cheetor needed someone responsible to talk to, advice and someone to look up to as a genuine hero, he turned to Optimus. When Rhinox's expression grew too grim or he became too involved in warcraft to look at anything else, Cheetor the kitten bounded into the fray to ask a million meaningless questions and learn something in the process. When he needed a pal, he went to Rattrap, because Rattrap could act his age even when they both knew the rat was older.

But pretend all they wanted, the Maximals were in a war. Again. Despite themselves. Refusing to talk about it with him wasn't going to make it go away.

That's why Cheetor went to Dinobot. Dinobot never tried to sugarcoat himself to anyone, much less Cheetor. He didn't deny that he had fought before out of some strange urge to defend Cheetor from the past. He was a strategist, a killer, a fighter, and an idealist hiding under a rough exterior of a realist. He wouldn't hesitate to manipulate or outright lie to the Maximal cat, but he wouldn't cross his strange code of honor, either. Which was how Cheetor, young little Cheetor, found that the evil ex-Predacon was a teacher in addition to being a ruthless, brutal, power-hungry 'bot. Under all the rest of the things war brought out in the ex-Predacon--the kind of things the other Maximals tried to deny about themselves--was the spark of someone who would tell it like it was and help Cheetor with that reality so long as he wasn't willfully stupid.

Cheetor followed Optimus Primal in war.

He turned to Dinobot to understand it.

"Why did you want to attack Megatron from the east?" he'd ask on the last leg of the patrol, and Dinobot would roll reptilian eyes at him. The raptor always did that. A teacher he may have been, but that didn't stop him from being a caustic, foul-tempered one. Fortunately, Cheetor had long ago perfected the art of letting mean comments roll off his back by letting them go completely over his head. He asked his questions, and Dinobot would snap back at him, and that was how their patrols passed.

"Why is Big Bot better at fighting in the air than Terrorsaur?"

"Why's it called a 'flank attack'?"

"Do you think Predacons on Cybertron will fight with Megatron if he gets back?"

"Why does Megatron think a shipload of energon make a difference on Cybertron? Is that enough to restart the Great War?"

There were always questions to ask. Cheetor just…didn't understand war. He hadn't been around for the Great Wars or the Maximal-Predacon war. He hadn't even been around many Predacons, not before they'd crashed on this planet together. It didn't make sense to him, turning on each other to fight over…what? Energy? Colonies? People? Power? What was the point?

"Tarantulas made Blackarachnia evil, er, a Predacon, right? Can he do that to stasis pods back on Cybertron? I mean, can he force 'bots into stasis and just, um, CHANGE their programming like that?"

"Why did you say Scorpinok is a stronger fighter than Rhinox? Didja mean because of his missiles?"

"Okay, so I know what a 'pincer maneuver' is, but how does it work with spaceships? Space-fighting's gotta be different than here on the planet, right?"

"Why don't you think a truce will work?"

Over and over, Cheetor listened to Dinobot explain that stop in the Maximal-Predacon war was only temporary. The Predacons were just waiting for a revolution. They wanted a new regime, THEIR regime, on Cybertron. Look at the example set by the Great Wars, the raptor said repeatedly, his voice grave and angry at the same time. Cheetor listened and tried to picture it: the Decepticons and their splinter groups, attacking over and over and over again, never stopping their attacks on the Autobots no matter the outside threats to Cybertron or the cease-fires called. They wanted war and power for the planet and their faction. Dinobot snorted at the Maximal High Council, dismissing them as a temporary setback for the Predacons. The faction had been suppressed, not obliterated, and the only way to stop the Predacons' lust for domination was to destroy them utterly. The Maximals, as Dinobot was quick to point out, were entirely too soft-hearted for such tactics.

Confused, Cheetor paused on the top of a rock ledge to look down and back at the raptor expounding on these lessons learned from the Great Wars. "How did the Great Wars end, then? Did the Autobots destroy the Decepticons?"

Dinobot cocked his head sideways to look up at him. "Doubtful." His brows creased. "History doesn't record how the Wars ended, just that they did. Some say the Great Destroyer, Unicron, ended the Wars, but there are remnants of a large base on Charr said to be built by the Decepticons after Unicron's defeat. I find it highly unlikely that a group of warriors would have gathered their strength in a militarily secure location without planning further military activity. Peaceful colonies are laid out differently." The raptor's tail swayed as Dinobot strode past Cheetor's perch, and a glittering, fanged smirk slanted toward the cat. "That is why colonies are often the best targets in war."

Cheetor started to answer and then hesitated to think about it. His tail lashed, and he jumped down to follow Dinobot. "Because they're less protected than bases?"

"Indeed." The raptor glanced over his shoulder. "Your High Council has approved the establishment of colonies that a well-armed warrior could level single-handedly. The loss of life in the upcoming battles will correct future design flaws, I would think." Cheetor didn't have to see the smirk to know that it was singularly nasty. Dinobot was probably already planning how the Predacons would attack.

He'd worry about that, but for all of Dinobot's threats, he knew the raptor's odd honor system wouldn't allow him to attack an unarmed opponent. The planning was a mental exercise in strategy for the ex-Predacon and a threat meant to rattle the Maximals he sneered at. All of which hadn't answered Cheetor's question, however. "You said history didn't say how the Great Wars had ended, but what do YOU think happened?"

For a few minutes, there was only silence, but Cheetor spent the time bounding up and over the rocks Dinobot walked around. Neither of them hurried the last few miles of their patrol route, and Cheetor really enjoyed using these miles to appreciate his cat beast mode. Besides, the silence didn't mean that Dinobot hadn't heard him. This had happened before, usually when Cheetor asked him for an opinion or theory on something that hadn't come up in the Beast Wars yet. He'd learned not to pester the raptor or attempt to rush him for fear that Dinobot would snap his head off and refuse to answer at all.

Finally, the raptor slowed his steps. Cheetor obligingly sprinted to catch up, and Dinobot turned to hiss into his face, "How many Maximals would Megatron have to kill before you stopped fighting?"

Cheetor hit the brakes, scrabbling with his forefeet while his butt skidded in the dirt. "Wh-what?!"

Narrow eyes glared at him, and the cat gulped. No joke, Cheetor. "He'll kill you all, Maximal. He won't make the same mistake your faction did of letting the insurgents live out of some misguided sense of pity. Mercy has no place in war! Wars kills until there is no one left to die!" The raptor's head twisted to fasten one grim eye on the stunned Maximal. "So I ask again, Maximal: how many of your faction would Megatron have to kill before you stopped fighting?"

Spotted fur bristled, and Cheetor's ears flattened to his skull. "I'd never stop fighting!"

Dinobot rolled his eyes to the sky as if asking to be saved from unspoiled innocents. Still, the answer seemed to satisfy him, and the raptor turned once more to walking. "Predacons will fight for power to the last, for they care little for their comrades' deaths so long as it benefits them. Maximals are foolish in that they care too much. It would save their fellow Maximals' lives if they surrendered, but instead they turn their dead into heroes. They hold up the dead as symbols and keep fighting. The dead inspire them where a Predacon would be much more reasonably afraid at the threat of death. Predacons surrender hopeless battles and so live to fight another day. Maximals become martyrs, and their surviving comrades use their deaths to fight further fruitless battles."

The Maximal cheetah took a moment to translate the brusque, snapped monologue into something he understood. When he finished, Cheetor stopped in his tracks to shudder in the abrupt chill. All he could see in his mind's eye for a blind moment of terror was the battlefield Dinobot's words painted for him: the Maximals never surrendered and the Predacons only pretended to. "You're saying we're all going to die." Rattrap's catch-phrase suddenly didn't seem funny at all.

Dinobot's sharp gaze had an edge to it that almost seemed like regret as he took in Cheetor's huddled form. For his former faction, perhaps, or the one he'd defected to. "Hnnn. You're not as stupidly optimistic as Primal, cat."

Optimus wouldn't have seen what Dinobot was talking about right away. Eventually, yes, but not as quickly as Cheetor had, because Optimus held so much hope for the redemption of Predacons like Dinobot. Maximals believed in redemption, of war-experienced 'bots on harmless exploration ships. In Optimus' presence, Cheetor wouldn't have seen it, either, because Optimus led in such a way that nobody thought of the outcome as death. Ever. He led them into the Pit, and they blindly believed that he would lead them back out.

Dinobot didn't believe. And Cheetor had asked why…

"There are very few of the oldest of our kind left on Cybertron," Dinobot said almost kindly, but ungently nonetheless. "The Autobots and Decepticons didn't disappear from history by themselves."

"Rattrap has a Great-Aunt Arcee," Cheetor offered somewhat morosely, still hunched in on himself.

"The rat has a trash compactor in his ancestry as well, I'm sure," the raptor snarled. "Many of the older Predacons and Maximals are descended by sparks or recycled parts from the survivors of the Great Wars. We know that much. It's recorded in history how Cybertron was remade into our modern world from what was left behind." He shook his head like a gnat had buzzed in his ear. "My point, cat, is that history doesn't record the end of the Great Wars. Common hearsay is that the survivors had to have survived some momentous event, but we do not know what."

Cheetor uncoiled and slinked after him as he started walking again. "You think differently." It wasn't a question. He knew…but he still had to hear him say it.

Dinobot grunted and was silent for a long moment. When they came to the edge of the grassy plain that the Axalon lay on, he stopped to stare at the distant exploration ship turned base for war. "…it's self-evident," he said in the acid, snide voice he used when cutting down one of Optimus Primal's strategies, but the bitter derision wasn't directed at Cheetor. Sometimes when he spoke like this, Cheetor had the feeling Dinobot taught himself as much as he taught one ignorant young Maximal who didn't understand war. "The two factions destroyed themselves, one for power and one in the name of heroes and hollow causes." He cast an impatient look down at the cat, but Cheetor hadn't protested his words as Primal would have. "I speak of honor and you don't understand it, but I have fought for my honor as you Maximals fight for your so-called freedom and rights. Yet how foolish would we be to fight to extinction?"

He had the feeling, wide-eyed and queasy, that the question was rhetorical. Dinobot, he already knew, would die for his honor. And Cheetor would follow Optimus Primal into any battle because what Optimus fought for was RIGHT. If Optimus died today, Cheetor would STILL fight for him, because he was good and worth fighting for. And the others, the other two Maximals on this planet who tried so hard to shield him from the Beast Wars in all its harsh reality, would fight beside him as they had before and now fought again. Because that was how a war started, when one side refused to back down, when one side took a stand and fought back--and continued to fight when sanity dictated one side should have long ago given up. Maximals against Predacons, like Autobots and Decepticons before them.

As for endings…well. Cheetor wished he'd never tried to understand war. He thought of temporary defeats in inevitable wars, of Predacons who would kill anyone in their way, and bowed his head. He wanted to crumple into himself and disappear. Ignorance was easier than knowledge, at least in retrospect.

"The only hope I hold," Dinobot said, "is that you Maximals will surrender. Lay the dead down and end this war before we end each other."

It seemed a very feeble hope.

.

* * *

.

* * *

_Doesn't anybody else find it kinda suspicious that Rattrap's good at espionage, Rhinox can counter Scorpinok AND Tarantulas AND Blackarachnia, and Optimus somehow holds his ground against a group of warmongering Predacons? And we know from the show that those three were also involved in subduing Protoform X. But Cheetor kinda doesn't fit into that. I wanted to paint a picture of the parallel between the Beast Wars and original Transformers using Cheetor and Dinobot._


	14. Off Duty

**Off Duty**

* * *

This was, in Terrorsaur's ever-so-humble opinion, the best way to spend a sunny afternoon when one was trapped on a grubby planet with a beast mode instead of something properly metallic. He didn't exactly regret the difference at the moment. He'd probably had more fun in his original alternate mode back on Cybertron, but right now he couldn't think of any one time that compared. Well...one that didn't end with a crash of some kind, anyway. Not to say that this might not end in an explosion as well, but for now it was fun just to go with the flow.

He put on an extra burst of speed with his jets and transformed to his beast mode as an updraft hit his face. Red wings spread to catch it, and Terrorsaur chuckled smugly to himself at the combination of warm sunlight above and the cool rush of air from below. Ah, perfect. Now all he had to do was figure out where Waspinator had disappeared to and all would be right in his world…until they got back to the base and Scorpinok caught up with them. It just made his enjoyment of his play all the richer picturing the scorpion's righteous indignation over their skipped shifts. Poor Scorpinok had to cover for the delinquent Predacons. Boo-hoo.

He cackled.

Eventually he pulled his thoughts lazily back to the missing wasp. It was easy to let his mind wander on days like this, but he had come out here for a reason at one point: catching Waspinator before he got himself slagged. How the hyperactive 'bot could outfly him without blinking today and run straight into a wall tomorrow was a mystery he thought he'd solved. Unfortunately, he also had a hunch that his solution was pretty useless. Megatron would most likely veto the idea of feeding Waspinator pure glucose before fights with the Maximals no matter how powered-up the wasp got. With the Predacons' luck in battle lately, Waspinator would probably do great until somebody fired a nice shiny missile. 'Ooo, Wazzpinator likezz shiny—' KABOOM!

He really needed to stop laughing out loud at his thoughts. Somebody was going to hear him and think he was as loony as—as—well, slag. Who HADN'T gone a little crazy? About the only one he could think of was Rhinox, and even that was just in comparison. As far as he was concerned, a Maximal was a few bolts missing by definition, and following that stupid ape of all 'bots just closed the case. Okay, fine. Of all the Maximals, who were lunatics to begin with, Rhinox seemed the sanest. Then again, Terrorsaur only knew that from fighting him. For all he knew, Rhinox turned into a polka-dotted fool the moment the Predacons weren't looking. He and Cheetor were probably a matched set!

…if he didn't stop snickering, someone was going to mistake him for Tarantulas.

He shook his head, amused and horrified at the thought. They were all insane, really. The Maximals were, well, Maximals, plus their individual glaring personality defects, although in Dinobot's case he was willing to cede the 'personality' part. That left the Predacons to supply the sane side of the Beast Wars, and slag all if THAT was going to happen. Tarantulas WAS a mad scientist, after all. Hehehe. Maybe that had been in his resume: 'will invent like an overenergized Wheeljack and chuckle like a mechanical hyena.' Hmmm…of course, Scorpinok's apparent aim of becoming Megatron's footstool rated him at the intelligence level of said piece of furniture, but he usually was no worse than Tarantulas. Unless there really was a shrine to Megatron in his quarters. Was obsession was a mental disorder? It had to be. It couldn't possibly be healthy, anyway. Focusing that completely on Megatron just wasn't right. Megatron was incompetent, overbearing, obnoxious, and he talked to that blasted head-hand of his. It was creepy, even if he could ignore the tyrant's yes/no speaking disorder. And then, just to complete the set, there was Blackarachnia. She was…female.

Terrorsaur had the feeling that he was forgetting someone as he rolled in midair and scanned the ground below almost absent-mindedly. Crazy Maximals? Check. Predacons who just happened to have mental problems? Not all of them were insane. For instance, the yellow and black wasp buzzing around down there was obviously in his right mind, nevermind the fact that he was cruising upside-down wearing flower garlands on every available surface and chasing his shadow. Plainly he was perfectly fine. Really.

Good thing he was alone up here. He'd hate for anyone to think he giggled like this normally. They'd think he was crazy!

.

* * *

.

* * *

_This was entirely too much fun to write. Getting into Terrorsaur's head when he's being a delinquent is dangerous; you start giggling randomly, not to mention to the urge to dive-bomb Megatron._


	15. No One Saves Their Savior

**No One Saves Their Savior**

* * *

They'd always told him to be a hero, to give everything he could, and he obeyed. Really, when it came down to it, obedience made him a hero in the end. It was peer pressure that forced his hand. He could feel their optics on him--afraid, angry, hopeful, hateful, doubting, daring--pulling him out in front to take whatever was thrown at him. It was the opponent who needed someone to make the fight epic; it was the victim who needed someone to be a savior. It was never HIS will that made him the one on the battlefield, sacrificing himself for the betterment of the team or whatever slag was needed right then and there.

He couldn't stand to disappoint them, any of them. He wasn't a hero because he wanted to be. He wasn't even a hero because he could be, possessing abilities or something special that somehow made him more suited to save the day. He was a hero because when the first 'bot looked to him for help, he had too much pride to look around in turn for the hero to take over and make it alright. He couldn't stand making himself look that weak.

After that, they kept looking to him, and he could only obey their will. They wanted a hero, and he gave them everything. He gave it all, and after it was gone, when even his pride was gone and he wished for someone to save HIM, he found that they were all he had left. When he would have fallen, a hero broken and victimized by his heroism, they gave something back. It was a sick and twisted gift that propped him up for the next blow, but it was the only time they'd given instead of taken. They gave him that pressure of their optics, that belief that he would protect them against all odds, and it was the only thing keeping him going.

Because he was hollow, a shell of a 'bot whose desires and will were dictated by those who cast him as a hero. He'd known it all along, but when they pressed him into that stasis pod converted into a weapon to literally save the world...he found himself without watching eyes, and it all fell apart. He didn't want to be the hero, he didn't want to be here now, knowing that he could die if everything didn't work out just right. He didn't want to be the one doing the saving!

In a way, he was grateful when Megatron's face filled the clear shell in front of him. The Predacon's optics immediately exerted their horribly welcome pressure and filled him with their expectation so he didn't have to be himself any longer. He could be the hero going to his death, and he could act the part because that's what that's what he was told to do. He didn't have to wonder if the people he protected had even tried their hardest, or if their misplaced confidence in his heroism had doomed him even as he saved them. He didn't have to be afraid of what was coming. He could put up a brave front for Megatron because that's what Megatron wanted to see, not because he really felt it.

He could die because that was what everyone--including him, but he was only a reflection of them, anyway--expected, knowing there were no heroes for heroes.

They lived for others. They died for others. Nobody did slag all for them.

End of story.

.

* * *

* * *

_This is Optimus Primal when he died the first time before Rhinox revived him. It makes me wonder how his opinion changed when he was returned to life, or if it was only confirmed when Rhinox immediately expected him to save the day. Poor guy. I don't really write anything with him because I have such a hard time getting into his head, but this was a look at him I really didn't anticipate at all._


	16. Duty Dodgers

**Duty Dodgers**

* * *

There are no direct instructions, deliberately misdirecting a 'bot. There are no overt actions or words. Instead, there are the subtleties of pictures and sayings, simply assuming that something is so. Off the edge of the map, here there be dragons. Why is the map safe from the monsters? Lines cannot protect the known from the unknown; why do they teach through underlying plans that the map is fully explored?

Banish the drawing, because that's all it is. It is merely a compilation of lines and directions; an attempt to sort out the limits of what can be proven, all the while knowing that it isn't for certain. It's self-deception at its most insidious and infectious, for once it is believed it spreads from 'bot to 'bot like a mental plague. It's easier to push everything into two brackets, convince oneself that life is black and white, than see the shades of gray. It is a fictional world of good and evil, safe and dangerous, explored and unexplored, and myth and truth.

Yet it is not. It is an illusion. But isn't it so hard to remember that, even when speaking of the innate deception within?

Like children listening to fairytales, raised to see the hero and villain as complete opposites, no one understands when the lines are crossed, or worse, erased. How can a villain possibly be good? Isn't the definition of villainy to BE evil? But that is another line, isn't it. A definition, like a map, that lays down a boundary that exists only in the mind. Forget the dichotomy and simply exist, and therein lies a world that boggles the common mind.

Good versus evil? There is no good. There is no evil. There are only reasons held by different people for why they do what they do. Death on one hand may seem wrong for those who die, but what of the world left for those who live? Do the ends justify the means when there is no cause for justification? It's not an idea held often or for long because the lines only fade. The mind cannot comprehend the immensity of a life without a defined system of ethics of SOME kind. It makes up its own map, sets the lines in place, and only in dreams may the boundaries be crossed.

Dreams are escape from the map. In fantasies the mind is free from assumptions and limits it set upon itself. It explores the known and finds dragons in the everyday where the waking mind blithely insists none exist. This is the ultimate freedom, a blank space for the villain to be just a 'bot and maybe find that there is more than two dimensions.

But it is only a temporary escape. Eventually reality must be returned to, and each 'bot will be trapped again by the drawing. The sugar buzz will wear off, the wasp will be caught, and two friends flying loose on a sunny day will become Predacons again. Dreams cannot last forever, and the dragons will wait to play another day, or perhaps only lurk where the mind is blinded to them, waiting to strike. For now, Terrorsaur will drag Waspinator back by his wings and pretend he hadn't done it out of any sort of feeling for the 'bot. They'll probably get yelled at. They'll probably be punished. And they'll slip subconsciously back into their place inside the boundaries, not to dare cross the thick black lines again.

...until tomorrow.

.

* * *

.

* * *

_See LD. See LD get philosophical. See LD sulk at 2D characterizations._

_More Waspinator and Terrorsaur, getting the most of their time away from the base. This is based off the familiar but fictional quote of map fame._


	17. Held Accountable

**Held Accountable**

* * *

Cheetor might see his first long-range expedition, new and exciting. The shiny infatuation would wear off once he was reassigned. Rattrap might see an older model, still useful but hardly flashy. It would be easily abandoned if the rat saw an opportunity to move on. Dinobot might sneer over Maximal technology and its supposed inferiority when compared to Predacon counterparts. He had no attachment to the ship itself beyond a place to withdraw. Optimus might see it in terms of his responsibility to the 'bots under his command: it kept them sheltered and protected, and that safety was what made it important. The loss of the ship would be less of a blow than if he lost a single crewmember.

Rhinox knew what his fellow Maximals might see when they looked at the Axalon, and he could understand why they saw it their way. It really was only a ship, one of who-knew-how-many built for deep space exploration. The people on board were the ones who gave it a personality, a name, a purpose. By itself, it was just a hunk of builders' junk…really, really expensive builders' junk. Millions of credits worth of hull metal, sensitive computer equipment, weaponry, and everything else than came with a starship, all eating up the Maximal High Council's finances. While Optimus knew, as any good commander did, what his vessel had cost to construct and prepare, the actual money-work had ended up on Rhinox' broad shoulders. It had been something he could manage while his old friend handled the crew side of the bureaucracy, and it had never been either of their intentions to leave him with the burden of trying to balance a budget that had long since lost its meaning.

The fact remained, however, that the ship's accountant hadn't arrived on the planet with them. Whether still in a stasis pod somewhere in orbit waiting to be activated or lost forever in the time warp that had brought the Beast Wars to Earth, the one who had been meant to deal with the Axalon's credits simply was not there. Nevertheless, if--WHEN--the Maximals returned to Cybertron, the High Council would expect the damages to be cataloged, cause and effect with the monetary loss side by side with the estimated repair cost. While the others could see the potential off the spreadsheet, Rhinox watched with an accountant's nervousness as the worth of the ship gradually dropped.

And the others wondered why he rarely left the ship anymore…

* * *

.

* * *

_Poor Rhinox; he makes such an ODD accountant._


	18. Punishment

**Punishment**

* * *

The bulkier Predacon had backed the slimmer 'bot into a corner. "Turn around," he ordered grimly. "It's got to be done."

Terrorsaur rarely seemed as vulnerable as he did right now, wings torn from his back and sparks flying from the ripped mounting, arms wrapped protectively over his midsection. "L-look, I made a mistake," he stammered, pain and nervousness making his already scratchy voice annoyingly high-pitched. "It's stupid, I-I know! M-Megatron's a fool, but--"

"Shut up," Scorpinok snapped, and his arm lifted to point his claw in clear threat at Terrorsaur's head. "Don't talk about our leader that way. Do you want me to make this more painful than it's gonna be?"

The red Predacon swallowed hard. "No..."

"Then turn around, and let's get this over with."

"Wait!" Terrorsaur screeched, panicking. "I'm too valuable for Megatron to do this to!" His injured back came in contact with the corner, and his arms unwrapped in an instinctual search for escape.

The scorpion advanced without pity. His fellow Predacon had lost that the moment he attempted to take over the faction from Megatron...again. "Do you really want Waspinator to be the one to do this? Or Tarantulas?"

The red helmet ducked in a reflexive flinch at the very idea, and Terrorsaur tried his meekest smile on the other 'bot. "N-no, sir."

The Predacon second-in-command eyed him suspiciously and tried to decide if that had been sarcasm. Giving up, he used a claw to prod the pterodactyl in the chest. "Turn around. And brace yourself against the wall, 'cause this is gonna hurt."

"Yeah, I know," Terrorsaur mumbled weakly. He turned slowly and braced his fists against the wall, shoulders hunched. "Why do you think I'm--" he cut himself off and yelped quietly as Scorpinok moved closer.

Scorpinok shook his head and set to work. "Next time Megatron won't be so lenient."

"This is barbaric," the red-silver 'bot managed through gritted teeth.

"It's manual repair, Terrorsaur," he replied absently, "not the end of the world. You're lucky he let you into the base again, even if he won't let you use the CR Tanks."

Terrorsaur whined softly, and his back sparked madly.

Scorpinok chuckled. "Aw, you like the attention. Admit it."

"Shaddup and weld, shell-head."

.

* * *

.

* * *

_Someone asked me for a ficlet with "Scorpinok/Terrorsaur abusive slash." This is as close as I got._


	19. First Do No Harm

**First Do No Harm**

* * *

"Acknowledged, sir," Tarantulas said to the strangely-accented robot on the screen, and communications channel cut off before he started cackling to himself.

Tripedicus Council agent, Rhinox thought distantly as the spider tapped at his console and giggled at a frantic pace. Tarantulas, an agent of the Predacon Secret Police. Who knew? He had certainly never expected it, but the instant obedience to Agent Ravage's orders was unquestioning and far greater than any loyalty shown to Megatron's commands. The ex-Decepticon's orders would be carried out; Tarantulas would help collapse the Predacon base's defenses for the combined attack of the Maximals and Ravage's ship, and Megatron would be arrested. The Predacons would be brought back to Cybertron and tried as criminals. The Maximals would be rescued at the Maximal High Command's orders by agents of the Tripedicus Council. The Beast Wars would end as strangely as it had begun.

All of which would not stop Rhinox from dying.

The pain receptors buried in the skin and flesh of his beast mode had burned past the point of feeling actual pain, but that didn't stop him from feeling how his body softened and dripped slowly off his structure. An acid, he knew, maybe hydrochloric or sulfuric, but the shocking arrival of Agent Ravage's ship--a rescue ship, too late for him--had cut off Tarantulas' aggressive gloating before that had been revealed. All Rhinox knew was that his organic parts were melting; dissolving off and out of his Cybertronian body at an unnatural rate that scalded sensors and left essential wiring exposed. Had the process been gradual and allowed his transformation circuitry to adapt to losing his beast mode, he could have cut the necessary systems out of the loop. As it was, nothing could spare his body. A thousand malfunctions and warnings blared in his audios and streamed across his vision, demanding immediate medical attention. The situation could only degrade from here.

So close, he thought bleakly. The agent claiming to represent the joint commands of the Maximals and Predacons on Cybertron had come minutes after the injection, perhaps an hour after his initial capture, and less than a day after the curious bait in Sector Parson had first popped up on the Axalon's scanners and lured him into Tarantulas' trap. He lowered his optics and watched in detached horror as another pain-numbed gobbet of flesh plopped to the stone underneath the web. It lay there hissing, smoke and liquid spreading from it as he disintegrated from the inside out. So close, Agent Ravage, and yet too far.

* * *

Tarantulas let out another burst of cackling, green visor cutting toward the web the Maximal hung from before he turned back to his hacking. He'd angled the screen so his superior officer couldn't see Rhinox hanging there, but he had no doubt that the other Maximals knew their science officer was missing by now. They would look for him. With Ravage's help, he had no doubt that they would eventually trace the rhino to his lair. It would certainly not look good if they found Rhinox dying in one of his webs. Not that he intended to try and save him, of course, since he knew the Tripedicus Council didn't give a slag if a Maximal died and he personally loathed this particular Maximal. Self-righteous scientists who were actually competent enough to stick to their morals and still match his genius deserved to be beaten at their own game.

Truthfully, however, most of his cackling did come from nervousness. He highly enjoyed breaking into Megatron's 'secure' files and base, but Ravage's orders had been too direct to plead ignorance of later. Implied intentions aside, he'd been explicitly ordered to assist the Maximals. Agents who screwed up could be screwed over, and he wasn't entirely sure the joint commands wouldn't throw him in with the Predacon criminals if Rhinox died at his hands.

He couldn't immediately think of any way to conceal that fact, either. Perhaps if he had a few more hours, or even a convenient 'fellow' Predacon to fob the death off on…but no, this wasn't a manner of death that Terrorsaur and Waspinator could ever be framed for, and Scorpinok was too clueless to make it believable. Megatron? Bah. As much as he'd like to set Megatron up for the fury of Rhinox's faction, he just couldn't figure out how to do it. That left trying to hide the body or lying through his mandibles. He didn't have time to do the former, and the extent of such a lie require to trick an agent like Ravage made him slightly ill. Trying to lie to a superior officer was the kind of stunt that landed agents like him in very deep holes, usually of the graveyard variety. He quite liked his life. Living appealed to him. Risking said life in a senseless attempt at covering his aft wasn't so appealing.

A rattling cough from behind him made Tarantulas flinch. He covered the involuntary motion with an automatic laugh. By now his cackling was even starting to get on HIS nerves. Much more of this and he'd be as crazy as he sounded just from dread.

He had to resort to inhaling deeply and forcing himself to hold his breath to stop the nervous cackles. "This is ridiculous," he muttered on the exhale. "Doomed if I do, doomed if I don't." If he told Ravage, his superior officer would have every right--and perhaps he would even consider it his duty, if he truly felt loyalty to the combined factions' Councils--to arrest him for war crimes, no matter his role as a double agent. Tarantulas had no doubt that the Maximals would try to kill him if they found out he'd been the one to torture and murder their comrade. If nothing else, if he DID end up in court for his part in the Beast Wars, their hostile testimony could condemn him to time in prison. Predacon Secret Police officers…did not do well at the mercies of other prisoners.

To be perfectly honest, the spider wasn't trying to save Rhinox because he wasn't sure he COULD. Lacking a stasis pod or CR Tank, there wasn't much he could do to stop the acid-induced necrosis of the rhino's form. The slurry of fluids and flesh that had once been his beast mode had taken out a series of vital internal systems, and that kind of damage couldn't be reversed without something to stabilize his spark. And while it was going to be bad enough to be caught with a Maximal corpse, having that same Maximal live long enough to implicate him in murder was sheer stupidity. At least this way he could TRY to weasel out of it.

The console beeped at him. "Incoming signal," the Predacon base's impassive female computer informed him. Tarantulas couldn't wait to taunt Megatron with the fact that the base computer had been under his control since the start of this foolish war.

But that had to wait. Who would be contacting him? Ravage? "Origin?"

"Maximal commlink. Estimated location: three clicks northeast."

His head whipped to the side, visor wide as it locked on Rhinox's broken form. A Maximal hailing his lair from that close? Ravage had to have informed the Maximals of his location, which begged the question of why the agent hadn't warned him of potential guests. Technically, since he was supposed to be aiding in their rescue, there really wasn't a reason NOT to tell the Maximals of his lair, but he wasn't a member of the Predacon SECRET Police for nothing. Ravage had to have guessed that there would be secrets in his hidden lair.

Which, if the agent had given away his location to the Maximals, said more about his loyalty to the combined factions than Tarantulas was comfortable with. Rhinox's dying presence suddenly loomed like a certain prison sentence shackled around his neck.

He forced his expression to calm and strangled a nervous chuckle before it escaped. "Open communications channel." At least his experience dealing with Megatron let his voice project fake confidence convincingly. "This is Tarantulas. What do you want?" Rudeness came like second nature; just because he was working with them didn't mean he had to like the Maximals any better.

The rodent's nasal whine cut through the still lair air like an accented hacksaw. "Knock knock, spider. Lemme in."

Oh, wonderful. He hated Rattrap on a good day. "Now why, teehehehe, would I do that?" The chuckle slipped out despite his efforts, but out of the corner of his visor he'd seen Rhinox buck in his webbing. Maybe it was hearing his friend's voice, or perhaps the acid had reached a pain receptor that still worked. "Go away, rat. I'm busy."

"No can do, ya--" He could almost hear the insults the rat stifled. Optimus Primal must have lectured him into submission about insulting allies. Too bad. Tarantulas could have refused him entry to his lair on a pretext of offense. "Look, ya sneaky, eight-legged copper," it really was odd to hear the Maximal address him by police slang, "your agent sent me ta collect restraints, some of your gizmos, and you. Not necessary unconnected, if ya get my drift," the rat added onto the end of his list.

He'd known he'd be joining the raid on the Predacon base. He'd suggested a few of his better inventions for use in pinpointing and restraining his former comrades, and Ravage had agreed upon their use. Tarantulas had simply assumed that Ravage would pick him up in the cloaked ship he'd arrived in when the time came. "Why hasn't Agent Ravage contacted me himself?" he stalled for time. He knew why. He'd been given orders to cooperate, and that meant cooperate, not drag his feet and delay. Like, say, he was doing now.

"I volunteered," Rattrap snapped, and there was suspicion in his voice. That, at least, was familiar. Spy versus spy, neither one trusting the other. And Rhinox may not have vanished out in this direction, but by now the Maximals would have started searching for him, and let it never be said that Tarantulas wasn't known for setting excellent traps. Of course the rat was suspicious! Tarantulas might have actually been insulted if he wasn't. "He's keepin' the ship grounded ta keep from alerting Grape-Face."

That made sense. He didn't like it, but it made sense. "Fine. Head straight north until you reach the rock face. There's a base sensor next to the ridge, but I'll disable it. TRY not to trip the other sensors, hmmm?" He cackled for a moment, pausing to imagine Megatron's face if the rat appeared out of nowhere on the base's sensory array. "Directly east of the sensor is a large boulder that's lighter than it should be. Move it to one side, and there should be a hole in the ground. If I feel like it," he said nastily, "I might even remember to disarm the traps inside."

Rattrap's voice oozed syrup. "Don't stir yourself for little ol' me. Your traps haven't slowed me down yet, eh?"

…he hated that rat. "It's just as well you're here now," he said, abruptly serious. Or so his voice sounded, although his mind had been racing during the entire conversation as he desperately made a plan.

"Huh?"

Tarantulas cut the connection off and whirled to press his back against the console. A Maximal was on his way into the base, and even the traps wouldn't slow THAT one down for long. A few more minutes of leeway at most, and then Tarantulas would be caught red-handed in murder and torture. He stared at the Maximal scientist dying--too slowly!--in his web and felt distinctly queasy as he fought his beast mode's instinctive urge to flee. It was a bad sign when a tarantula's instinct skipped 'fight' and went straight to 'flee.' Maybe he could add a little more acid, or introduce a virus, or--or--

"Ah, slag," he whispered, throwing the beginnings of a plan out. He couldn't kill the rhino and claim to have rescued Rhinox 'too late' to save him. It would be the easiest lie, but anything he did from this moment forward could be traced directly to him, and Rattrap would see that right away. He may hate the rat, but he had to respect the other spy's skills. Rattrap acted the fool, but having access to police files had kept Tarantulas better informed than he'd ever let Megatron know. There was no way Rattrap would believe a word he said with Rhinox's dead body hanging from his web.

A thin, slimy string of connective tissue oozed to the floor as the Predacon watched, and a high, almost hysterical chuckle responded to the sight. Regret? No. Rhinox was a stupid Maximal, and he held no regrets for killing any of that flock of idiots. That Rhinox had held to scientific morals he himself had long ago discarded only added to the personal satisfaction of destroying him as gruesomely and unethically as possible. Death was proof that the only way to ultimately succeed in this Pit-spawned universe was to turn his back on an artificially created and imposed set of beliefs that limited creative genius. Fighting Rhinox in the Beast Wars had enraged him because this goodie-goodie Maximal had nearly held his own, nearly proven him wrong, but no. Look at the precious Maximal ideals now, dying for a refusal to 'fight dirty.'

Predacons called it survival.

Tarantulas was RIGHT. He knew it. That didn't stop despair from curling around his spark at a sight that should bring him only satisfaction. Unless he killed Rattrap and took up Megatron's side of the war, he couldn't see any way out of a stint in jail. Probably a LONG stint in jail. Probably a scarring, if not fatal one. Failed agents didn't do well once returned to the Tripedicus Council's control, and he cringed at the thought of what could be worse than a prison term for a police officer.

He could do it. Megatron might not trust or like him, but if he threw in his lot with the tyrannical, delusional Predacon leader, even Megatron's tendency to hold a grudge couldn't stand against needing all the fighters he could get to stand against Ravage and the Maximals. With his knowledge of the agent's ship and capabilities, the Predacons might even stand a chance. A slim one, yes, but even that gave him higher odds than his current situation. There was simply no way he could hide all the evidence before Rattrap got here, even if he lied about the mess on the floor and shoved the body down a crevasse. Scent, if nothing else, would reveal the truth.

The hysterical laughter spiraled higher as his mind raced. Face murder charges in court, more or less worse depending on who sided with or against him on Cybertron, or throw it all away in a last-ditch attempt at restarting a war between the factions in faint hope that he'd win. What a choice! His loyalty lay with the Tripedicus Council, not Megatron. But to save himself…well, let it not be said that Tarantulas couldn't be clever under fire. He couldn't pretend belief in Megatron's cause, but he could very easily convince the tyrant he'd do anything to stay alive. That was a kind of mentality Megatron could understand.

Instead of working with the rat at Ravage's orders, then, he'd be killing the Maximal on sight. This was not exactly how he'd wanted Rattrap to die at his hands. In fact, he'd rather it didn't happen at all if it meant turning traitor on the Tripedicus Council. Circumstances, however, were less than ideal.

And the blame for that could be laid, irrationally at best, at the feet of Rhinox. "This is," he snarled, looking up from the puddle of goop that had once been flesh to meet the Maximal's dazed optics, "YOUR fault. A few minutes' difference and I wouldn't be forced to do this!" As he spoke, Tarantulas drew and checked his weapon. Rattrap wouldn't be an easy target to hit. "I'd prefer to leave this mudball and Megatron's petty schemes behind, but you're a dead 'bot waiting to happen--and who do you think will be the scapegoat for THAT?" Ignoring that he'd actually done the deed they'd condemn him for, but fear blocked out such small facts. He hadn't done anything WRONG, after all. "Uncooperative to the end," he grumbled. "Blasted Maximal. Even your death is inconvenient. Why couldn't you have waited five more minutes to walk into the trap?!"

Five minutes' difference and the acid could have been excised from Rhinox's body in time; messy and painful, but excusable as an aborted act of war done as a double agent. Such things had precedence in police history. Being caught killing someone against orders? Not so much.

A fit of cackling would have left a lesser mechanism shuddering with tension in its wake. Tarantulas' pincers were rock-steady. He didn't really believe that Megatron would win, even with his help. But at least he'd have earned the prison time instead of, ah, 'accidentally' falling into it. And they wouldn't take him without a fight.

A hissing gurgle drew his attention from the weapon he fiddled with so tensely. Static came from his victim's throat, as if he was trying to speak. Tarantulas cocked his head, curious. After the initial screams, he'd assumed Rhinox had fried his vocal circuitry. Apparently not, if the hoarse sounds breaking through the static were any indication. Temporary overload, it seemed. That could have been very…bad, if Rhinox had tried to speak while a communication channel had been open.

"What?" he snapped. "Last words? A plea for your friend?" The words were mocking, but he moved closer, genuinely curious as to what the Maximal would try to say. A spurt of liquid organic material--maybe skin or an internal organ before the acid got to it--came out of Rhinox's mouth, making the rhino choke. Garbled sounds preceded an actual word, and Tarantulas stepped closer yet. "What? Speak up!" That abruptly struck him as funny, and he couldn't help but snicker again.

Rhinox's optics blinked at his amusement, and this time a word cut through the static. "T-trap…"

Tarantulas' laughter cut off as he took a closer look at the Maximal scientist. While he'd usually dismiss the ramblings of a 'bot on death's door, he'd never underestimate Rhinox that way. What he'd mistaken as the glazed look of someone in excruciating pain actually appeared to be fierce concentration, the kind of look that produced life-saving miracles in the midst of a firefight. Obviously he wasn't just repeating back Tarantulas' own rant, and there was little chance the Maximal could be stupid enough to think he could warn the rat about Tarantulas' intentions from his position. That left a keen mind with nothing to lose that had just witnessed and analyzed everything he'd said and done since Agent Ravage had arrived on the planet.

An uneasy sense of being completely out of his depth swept through the Predacon. If he'd been in his beast mode, he'd have crouched where he stood, paralyzed by the feeling. The Cybertronian wanted to fight; the tarantula wanted to flee; both unexpectedly felt that the decision had just been taken from him.

If Rhinox had been a Predacon, Tarantulas would know what that meant. But he wasn't. Thus the stuttering, gasped words pulled the ground out from underneath him and left him staring in mute disbelief that anyone could possibly be so incredibly idealistic. He almost blurted out the questions hammering against the inside of his head, demanding to be let out, but if he asked, Rhinox might answer. If he answered, Tarantulas would have to kill him no matter the consequences, just to remain sane. The universe…it couldn't possibly function like this, with people who didn't acknowledge morals as optional. Even with the evidence glaring pained and determined into his very own optics, Tarantulas couldn't accept what he saw. Not forgiveness, no, the victim wasn't forgiving of his murderer, but Tarantulas suddenly felt very, very small before a judge and jury that had just cleared him of charges before the rest of his peers even knew he was up for trial, all for the sake of a higher purpose he'd been prepared to betray.

When a silent alarm tripped, signaling Rattrap's imminent arrival, the spider stumbled in his eagerness to get away from the glare that forced humility down his throat in a bitter draught. For someone who couldn't comprehend compassion, unintentional mercy shocked him to his knees. It flew in the face of everything he accepted as fact. It squashed his habitual urge to chuckle with the knowledge that the scientist he'd hated for succeeding despite his ethics was about to save him because of those same ethics.

Tarantulas had won the battle by killing Rhinox, and somehow, still, he'd lost the war.

* * *

He watched his murderer go through rapidly-fading vision, holding on by willpower alone as his body shut down. He held onto the lie, repeating the words over and over, ready to say them aloud. Untrue words about a trap gone wrong and a double agent who hadn't been able to save him despite their best efforts. Words that would be accepted as truth, rewriting the events of the last hour in the minds of those who hadn't witnessed it. He had to last long enough to tell his friend that the spider hadn't killed him. That was all. Tarantulas could manage to invent a believable lie from there, so long as Rhinox testified that it wasn't his fault. After all, no one would expect a victim to defend his murderer. Rattrap would believe him where no lie of the spider's would work.

Tarantulas didn't understand why a Maximal would do such a thing. He couldn't seem to wrap his mind around a sacrifice for a greater good. He would never look beyond personal vengeance to see how a few straightforward words could stop a war. That was worth the cost of one petty killer's freedom.

The hardest thing a martyr ever does, Rhinox thought dimly, is die for a cause.

And no one would ever know…

.

* * *

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* * *

_I've rarely seen Rhinox and Tarantulas interact. I needed a ficlet to set up a rescue and future ficlet, so the setting had to be in the first season of Beast Wars, before Inferno, Blackarachnia, Tigatron, or Airazor arrived. It's a "what if" for Ravage's early arrival in the Beast Wars._

_A myth about the Hippocratic Oath prompted the title and theme for the idea here: a Maximal doctor/scientist believes that above all, you must do no harm. Even dying, would Rhinox weigh the lives lost in a war against his own life? His first action is to do no harm, even if he has to lie to do it. That warps Tarantulas and his Predacon viewpoint enough that he tastes, perhaps for the first time, shame. But he doesn't want to admit it, because to admit it would make it real._

_I think this might have stood alone as a fanfic if I'd developed it more, but I really only wanted to get the basics across as a prologue._


	20. The Gossip Game

**The Gossip Game**

* * *

The dawn had been ominously red, but it was a beautiful day, sunny and with enough breeze that his wings flicked with it even in his robot mode. He wanted to fly. Hands on his hips and a smile on his face, Terrorsaur looked up at all the wonderful open air above the Predacon base and laughed for no reason at all. "I'm going to skip the rest of my shift and go flying after I finish this," he chortled, returning to work on the malfunctioning autogun. Next to him, he knew that the camera had picked up his apparently random comment.

The camera fed into a screen inside the base, where Waspinator sat on monitor duty. He shook his head in exasperation at his fellow flyer. He liked flying, too, but sometimes he just didn't understand the pterodactyl's obsession with it. "Terror-bot get caught," he warned lightly, but another bray of laughter was all that answered him.

Unknown to him, just then Tarantulas had passed overhead in a ventilation duct on a search for edible vermin. The spider paused thoughtfully before continuing on his way. Coming to an intersection in the ducts, he found Blackarachnia already inspecting his web. "Finders keepers," she snapped at him, and he hissed in disgust as she spun a sticky cocoon around the rat.

One of the cardinal rules of the Predacon base was 'Thou Shalt Not Attack Blackarachnia Without Backup And A Really Large Gun.' Disobedience was paramount to suicide, or at least a painful day spent stuffed in creatively-hidden, uncomfortable dark holes around the area. "One of these days, I'll catch you like Megatron does Terrorsaur," he snarled, retreating. "Perhaps today you should take his lesson to heart, tehehehehe!"

"Oh, what's that birdbrain done NOW?" she muttered to herself as she hauled her stolen catch through the halls of the base toward her room. Scorpinok stepped aside without looking up from the damaged console he'd been poking at all week. He'd ALMOST gotten the screen working. "One of these days, Megatron's gonna scrap him, and then who will I blackmail into taking repair duty? Stupid flyer needs to get his head out of his skidplate. Never thinks up anything workable, anyway…mumble mutter grumble…"

The scorpion heaved a sigh when Blackarachnia was out of hearing range. "Slaggit, Terrorsaur, and it's been such a nice day," he complained. "Why couldn't you be a traitor tomorrow, or something?"

'Traitor' was all Inferno needed to hear, and somehow he managed to hear it from three rooms down. "The traitor to the colony shall burn!" he shouted, banging out of his quarters and charging down the hall.

Scorpinok swore horribly as the surprise made his pincer slip, and the computer shorted out. "Leave Terrorsaur alone!" he yelled after the ant. "Megatron will handle him!"

Belatedly, Inferno remembered that the Queen preferred to deal with this traitor personally. "My Queen!" He about-faced and marched toward the Royalty's quarters. He found her relaxing in the hottub, but that soon changed as he told her that the traitor plotted. Megatron rose from the energon in a liquid fount of fury, optics narrow with anger.

Happily closing up the last open panel on the autogun, Terrorsaur eyed the approaching rainclouds and cheerfully anticipated outflying them. Staying ahead of the storm front would be an enjoyable challenge. "This is going to be FUN," he mused, and turned around.

And came face-to-teeth with a growling tyrannosaur. "Fun? Not for you, nooo," Megatron said coldly.

The rain closed the sky, cold and leaden. It had been such a beautiful day…

.

* * *

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* * *

_Ever played "Telephone"? Office gossip does the same thing, until the original news doesn't even vaguely resemble what's being told to everyone. Poor Terrorsaur. He's so much fun to victimize._


	21. This Is Not Enough

**This Is Not Enough**

* * *

She sat in the brig of the Axalon, not in a containment cell but staring into one. Her back was against the wall, her posture tense as if she couldn't even trust the stability of the metal against her shoulders, and her thoughts tumbled in bright flashes that blinded instead of lit the situation. They came so fast, she had to scramble to keep up with them, and even then they'd gotten around her defenses and backed her into a corner of her own making. If she waited much longer, they would drive her mad, but perhaps then she wouldn't need to try and define what she felt into acceptable perimeters.

They'd congratulated her on turning a nasty situation around for the better, but what did Optimus and the others really know about what had happened? She had been dented and torn but she'd recovered, and no one had thought much of what damage could be done by the widow that a CR Chamber couldn't fix. If she confessed the thoughts she'd repressed for so long, would she lose control of them or would the other Maximals explain everything away? Or would confronting them with their own stereotypes force her to conform to them once more, pressed between the guidelines by disapproving optics? She would hurt Tigatron, if no one else, by her frightened, hurting thoughts. He wanted her, and for so long she had allowed that wanting, afraid to refuse his proffered love. Did she want him in return..?

The accepted answer would be "yes." Ever since she'd come online, there had been expectations and little assumptions, nothing ever really brought out into the open but present all the same. She had been convinced that it was all in her head, that it was her that was in the wrong, and that somehow her reluctance to participate was shameful. Now, though...now she knew better. She wasn't alone, and that sense of kinship and knowing had brought about this silent maelstrom. The words circled, circled, cut and burn; every word the Maximals and Predacons had ever said ran against the conversation that wouldn't stop repeating in her head. They couldn't be together, where they could sort out the pressures put on them, discard what was unwanted, and build something new and vibrant out of the old roles assigned them. She wanted to fly her away to somewhere where faction wouldn't matter, where there weren't any optics to stare at them for being what they weren't "supposed" to be.

Her own optics met the optics of the occupant of the cell, and what she saw there made the words rail louder. She felt the same, and they couldn't pretend it didn't matter. What had been quietly tucked away in the corners of their minds was unleashed, and she, at least, didn't have the courage to make the leap. She could try to forget it, even pretend that nothing had happened, but she couldn't bear to hurt the other Maximals. She couldn't take the disappointment, the disapproval, for being what a stereotype wasn't. In time, she might even be able to thrive inside that role. What would drive her mad, however, was to see the freedom and know that no one else had seen it as well. To be alone in her knowledge and doubt her sanity once more.

And so, Airazor climbed to her feet and walked slowly across the brig to stop outside the glowing red bars. Black optics met blue, and she whispered, "Tell me, what do you see?" Hoping, praying that the answer would be kind.

Bitter contempt filled those black optics, reading blue as easily as blue had black. "I see a coward." She bent her head, accepting that answer for the truth that it was, but a pincer lifted her chin. Foolish Maximal, to have come within her reach, but the touch was gentle. "And I must have lost my mind to be as cowardly."

They stared at each other for a long, long moment, everything they shared running through their minds. Without moving her gaze, Airazor bent and cut the power to the red bars. Immediately, alarm klaxons went off, and the captive stepped out almost disbelievingly.

Strangely, it was Blackarachnia who asked, "Will we never be free?"

The Maximal only smiled sadly and leaned forward, daring to cross an invisible line between permitted and forbidden. Risking the step outside the stereotype before returning to the secure prison. The Predacon met her halfway, and it was sweet and sour, strong and weak, hot and cold. So soft, but there was a sharp bite to her bottom lip as the door to the observation deck burst open for Optimus Primal. A confirmation of what was known, a pledge to remember, and a goodbye to forget.

Then she was gone.

Optimus looked down at Airazor where she swayed, all the things she said running through her head, and she cried, "This is not enough!"

They told her later it was the venom talking. She chose to agree with them.

.

* * *

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* * *

_Funny how not one part of this song-ficlet has come out as planned. Airazor was supposed to kiss Blackarachnia before leaving her to die. Huh...not sure if I like this any better, but that would have definitely been more dramatic._


	22. A Story Already Told

**A Story Already Told**

* * *

The body was heavy in his arms, and Rattrap didn't think he could carry it all the way.

He still had to try.

_::You were too late, anyway,::_ he mocked himself as he struggled to reach the top of another hill. From the top, he could see more hills. His arms strained, and in the back of his mind he counted down the time until energon overload forced him back into his beast mode._ ::You can only carry him so far. That's all anybody can expect of you.::_

True. Nobody could expect the impossible of him, that he save a life already lost or carry the dead home. No matter that Rhinox shouldn't have died in the first place or that his body belonged with the Maximals instead of being left in Tarantulas' lair or in the wasted lands between Maximal and Predacon territory. He'd failed an impossible task, but that didn't mean he didn't blame himself for that failure. The body in his arms was so heavy. His arms cried out for relief, but he couldn't just put the body down. Rhinox deserved better.

He took a step forward, then another. Distantly, he knew he was in shock. He took it one step at a time, stumbling through the dirt and memories and disconnected thoughts. Just one at a time, until he'd reach the point where he simply couldn't go on.

"He triggered a trap. Acid. Burned him up."

Burned? The word wasn't violent enough. Slime coated Rattrap's front, bits and pieces of flesh and skin floating in a dissolved soup threaded through with delicate wires. He'd never have been able to carry Rhinox even this far if he'd still been intact, and Rattrap tried very hard not to think of that. If he did, he'd gag, and he had too much respect for that. Rhinox had died in the line of duty, no matter how, and Rattrap would honor that death by not shrinking from this final task. No matter if all that was left to honor was a jumble of internal structures and fluids.

_::Do you remember meeting him for the first time? He was such a snob.::_ Of course he remembered, just as he remembered that it was his own back-street accent and mentality that had created the first impression of the 'bot who'd become his friend. Not that he'd accept the blame, then or now. Rhinox had always been a slow-spoken 'bot who didn't respond to his jokes. Rattrap used his crude jests as an ice-breaker and defense in one, and meeting a 'bot who didn't fall for the act or react with more than a slight frown to him had been unsettling. He'd responded to the scientist in a typically antagonistic manner until Optimus had raked him over the coals for trying to start fights. After that he'd been sullen but not aggressive.

_::You were wrong. Rhinox didn't not like you. He was just being…Rhinox.::_ Slow to laugh, slow to anger, slow to speak, and slow to trust. It had been incredibly frustrating, but they had to work together. It had taken Rattrap weeks to realize that despite the scientist's slow nature and his own wariness, they'd established a weird relationship that actually worked. It took him longer still to know that he really trusted this odd Maximal who didn't react like everyone else. _::You could unravel his behavior until then. All the training the underground had given you, and he had you baffled.::_

"He hung on. Had t' tell me what happened." His throat closed on the words. "Accident, he said. Slagging ACCIDENT."

Last act of a civil war, so-called 'friendly fire' explained through agony-laced words while Rattrap hovered in frantic helplessness. And all the suspicious circumstances in the world couldn't dismiss the steady assurance in his friend's voice.

Rattrap had been trained in espionage for the High Council. He knew how to ferret out spies in the ranks and sabotage before it happened, but the one thing they'd never instructed him on were genuine people. Suspicion and a thousand masks were useful in dealing with spies, informants, and those using him for their own ends, but confronted with a honest 'bot who spoke only the truth and said what he meant…Rhinox was quite possibly the antithesis of everything Rattrap had been trained to counter, and that was what had thrown him off. All the clues were there, but he'd assumed they'd been planted instead of sincere.

He'd never felt so sheepish in his LIFE.

"Eight-legged freak couldn't save 'im. Swore he couldn't. Rhinox said he tried."

His arms were tired, very tired, and he just wanted to rest. But all the clues were there.

"Pred's talkin' slag. He didn't try. He's lyin'."

All the clues, sneaking under the radar, and he didn't understand. Conflict came in many forms, but the worst was in the aftermath of a friend's death. Because he had to analyze the facts and compare them to the story he'd been told. And they didn't match up, they didn't match, and he didn't want to think it but did anyway. _::You know what that means.::_

"Rhinox was tryin' t' tell me somethin', but it's all gone t' da Pit now."

It had hurt to watch the High Council turn on Rhinox. Himself, yeah, he'd been screwed over on operations before. It was standard operating procedure to sacrifice the operative instead of the operation whenever possible, but he was accustomed to it. He'd been trying to get out of that life, finally fed up with the post-war Predacon infiltration and bureaucratic nonsense, but they manage to stab him in the back one last time. Everywhere the High Council's influence reached was prey to its manipulations, however innocent the occupation. Rhinox had just taken longer than most to fall under their feet.

They'd been working in the shipyards with Optimus, waiting for his captaincy to clear. That hadn't been bad. All three of them occasionally went out on inter-system ships, usually assigned to the same one, and between missions they did what they could around the shipyards. Rattrap had worked security as a low-cover inspector for smuggled goods; Rhinox generally stayed in the interior of the 'yards in the labs; Optimus had pushed paper or assisted his current captain while waiting for his own rank to go through. They'd already had a reputation as a close team, not necessarily because of their personal closeness--Rattrap never fit into more than a casual friendship with either one, although Optimus and Rhinox were long-time friends--but because they just worked well together. Rattrap had always had problems with authority. Optimus was the first officer he'd worked under who not only tolerated his insubordination but gave as good as he got. Rhinox just didn't respond.

_::You thought you were doing it. You thought you were out,::_ he thought bitterly, acid in his mouth and dripping down his front. The joints in his arms were burnt, and small whines from over-stressed metal came from the affected areas.

"Spider killed 'im."

Murder in the first degree, premeditated and most definitely purposeful. Mechfluid on Tarantulas' hands like the lives lost to the prisoner their whole job was a cover for. The typical delays for a captain on his first mission had suddenly disappeared when the High Council needed transport for their prize mutated spark, and Rhinox's optics had filled with sorrow for the deceit. Rattrap didn't know what the deal was with the huge 'bot they'd forced into a stasis pod, or why Optimus had seared a giant 'X' on the pod before isolating it in the hold away from the area where the rest of the crew would be stored. To be perfectly frank, he didn't want to know. What he knew sickened him enough.

One day, there had been a massacre on Colony Omicron, the next there hadn't even been a colony. There had once been a Starbase Rugby, too, and then there wasn't. Rattrap, Rhinox, and Optimus had forced a monster into a stasis pod, then stored the pod in a ship that hadn't even been cleared for a mission. Soon after, there was no pod. No monster. And of course the ship was approved for an immediate opening in the exploration schedule. The crew had assembled almost overnight, and they three had known it would all go great as long as the unwritten rules were obeyed. The silence had to be unbroken.

Nobody said a word. Optimus had looked so weary, crushed under the orders that didn't exist, and Rhinox had known more than an honest 'bot should and been scarred by the knowledge.

_::You weren't even surprised,::_ he thought viciously in the sanctity of his own mind, private and uncensored. Unedited, where the government couldn't touch the truth.

His arms trembled, weighed down by what he carried.

"Dat rusted scrapheap KILLED 'im."

Rattrap didn't need to know details to know what had happened. What WOULD happen. Death and politics; one disappeared at the convenience of the other. The official story could be read in Agent Ravage's optics and the mission statement for a rescue operation—more like a political sterilization--in the High Council's hands.

He'd killed people who didn't exist, too.

Energon overload shocked him to his knees, and Rattrap hissed. His robot mode had been exposed too long, but he couldn't stop now. He had a body to bring back, leaden with all the words he'd been emptied of. Somewhere up ahead lay the Maximal base, and it didn't matter what he told the others. A death in a war far, far away could lead to panic, maybe even a full-scale war back on Cybertron. Better that it all just…never happen. Somewhere beyond the Maximals in the Beast Wars, behind Agent Ravage and Tarantulas' smooth lies, perhaps in the subtext Rattrap had heard under Rhinox's pained last breath, a story had already been told. Not this one. Not the real one, but truth could be rewritten by the right hands. A different story without murder, or war, or honor for a death in the line of duty.

"Won't forget, Rhinox. I won't."

Rattrap held his friend's body in his arms. He took another step forward, then another after that, but no one--not even him--could carry Rhinox home again.

And his words erased clean away.

.

* * *

.

* * *

_It's not easy to stay silent. This was meant to be an incredibly disjointed look into Rattrap's head after "First Do No Harm" as the past and present collide. See, I really think there's a lot more to Rattrap's past, but he doesn't talk about it. He knows about staying silent. He also knows how things he stays silent about are silenced._

_He's letting it all out now, because nobody's going to hear his story over the one already told on Cybertron. It's not fair, but, well, governments usually can't afford to be._

_These two ficlets are really setting up as the prequel for "This Is How the War Ends."_


	23. Wrong Side of the Altar

**Wrong Side of the Altar**

* * *

He closed his optics, dimming the room until he didn't have to see the empty spot on the wall where a picture used to be. It was better that way, and he didn't feel so guilty then.

He wondered what the others would think as he rolled over on his bed, facing away from the blank wall when it wasn't enough to simply block out the sight. He wondered, and it made him feel even guiltier. Would they understand? Of course. Silverbolt would give him that meltingly sympathetic look he seemed to have perfected. Rattrap would cuff him on the shoulder and make some offhanded comment that would start a snarking match and distract them both. Rhinox would offer another poster or give him something to work on. Optimus...Optimus would just understand. Offer to talk with him, or just find him late at night to tell him it was alright, and somehow, listening to his commander say it, it would be. They'd all understand.

And they wouldn't get it if he told them that just made it worse.

They were all so perfect, even Rattrap, in his own round-about way. They'd understand where he'd be confused, and he couldn't take it anymore. He was one imperfect piece, out of place in the team puzzle fitted together in the Axalon, screwing up the entire picture by being the flawed member. Everyone else had something to make them special, make them more than ordinary: Rhinox was a tech-wizard and had succeeded in bringing someone back to life! Rattrap had pulled off the impossible in infiltration and demolitions alike! Silverbolt was the pristine white knight everyone admired! Dinobot had held his honor so highly he'd died to save the future! Airazor and Tigatron had loved and gone to their deaths holding tight to one another! Optimus Primal had died for his duty--and come back to life! How wonderful! How marvelous! They were the heroes legends were made of!

Then there was Cheetor. Cheetor was fast, and young, and managed to mess everything up. There was no dramatic moment for Cheetor, no day to save, no limelight to fill. He was just there, a cheerleader on the sidelines or someone to save, not one of the others. He wasn't anything.

Heroes were great to look up to when he was hearing the stories from the perspective of somewhere it might make a difference. Back on Cybertron, hero worship inspired him to go on an exploration mission, inspired him to look for role models like Optimus Primal and join his crew. But what's a 'bot to do when he lives among the supernatural? He could only be cheerful for so long, try so hard, fail so many times to fit in. Even optimism has an ending point when the last photons of light scatter into the darkness of the void. He was no hero. He was only an ordinary rule reaching for an unattainable goal, and it hurt him every time he inevitably fell from the heights and had to be saved by one of the perfect exceptions he'd tried to be like.

He'd looked up to them for so long that he couldn't remember what it was like to not look over at the wall and see his role models looking back, smiling (Dinobot grimaced) out of the picture at him.

But the picture was gone, facedown under his bed, and he wasn't going to look at it or think about it anymore. If he was lucky, nobody would notice that there was something missing in his room. It would only make it worse if they found out, because they'd only prove how perfect they really were if they could listen to him and understand that he couldn't strive to attain their idealized lives for one minute longer without going insane. He'd spent too long trying to be someone he couldn't possibly be, and it was time he lowered his standards. It really was the only way.

It didn't make him feel any less guilty for being a Maximal instead of a superhero.

.

* * *

.

* * *

_I don't particularly like Cheetor, but I feel bad for him. It never seems to show during the show, but it's got to be depressing, always being the one who needs to be saved or the one who screws up. So here's to the mediocre who just can't be good enough when forced to be around the truly excellent..._


	24. Mine!

**Mine!**

* * *

When Terrorsaur died, he'd never expected the Pit to be run by bureaucrats. It made a kind of twisted sense when he thought about it, which he had time to do at length in the following run-around of filling out paperwork. Who knew that death required so much red tape?

"No, no, look, I died on a planet with two moons. TWO moons. It wasn't Earth!" Waving his hands, the red Predacon tried to get this important point across to the heavily armored Decepticon sitting behind the desk.

Red optics peered officiously at him. "Well, your entry SAYS Earth," the robot said with a certain stuffiness only a career bureaucrat could pull out of his aft. "If your place of death says Earth, then that's where you died."

"I KNOW that's what it says," Terrorsaur gritted out. "That's why I'm here talking to you. I'm supposed to get the entry changed because it's wrong. So will you PLEASE just change the planet's name to the right one? I filled out Forms 180B through 360A, got two approval signatures from the Office of Fatal Registrations, and all you need to do is correct the name." Then he'd have to start all over again to correct his time of death, which was ridiculous enough that the politician who'd first met him at the entrance to the Pit had pulled him out of the line to yell at him. As if it was HIS fault this place had somehow screwed up the details of his death?

The Decepticon sighed as if the weight of the world was upon his shoulders. "Let me see the forms."

It was Terrorsaur's turn to sigh. With a resigned nod, he began taking sheaves of paper out of subspace. Actual paper, piles and piles of actual paper, the kind that he'd had to fill out with a real stylus, all the while cursing because genuine paper had a nasty habit of combusting. The Pit's slang name wasn't the Inferno for nothing. He'd nearly crisped a wing when Form 230R burst into flames in the heat, and now he beat at a corner of the growing pile on the desk as it began to smolder. "That's all of it, unless you need to see the forms I had to fill out to get these forms," he grunted, wiping ash off his hands. The desk, sized as it was for a Decepticon, seemed to groan a plea for mercy at that, and the small Predacon smirked mirthlessly.

"This will do for now," the Decepticon said, and Terrorsaur settled into an outsized, uncomfortable chair to wait while the larger Cybertronian dug into the papers.

He knew the drill. The bureaucrat would read through the pile, only to point out that Form #whatever had been forgotten or burnt up somewhere along the line, so he'd have to go back to the Office of Screw-ups and Confusion--it probably had another name, but that's what he'd decided to call it--to start the whole process over again. He'd request another form from the evil old computer at the office, which had long ago gained sentience and dedicated itself to indiscriminately hating everyone who tried to use it for its intended purpose. It would misdirect, misprint, or otherwise mess with his mind and the forms he had to have in order to request the next set of forms for what he needed to do. By the time he got his hands on the right forms, the politician who ran the Office of Misfits--or Fatal Registrations, to those who didn't have to deal with the people working there--would descend on him and demand to know why he hadn't properly registered yet. After explaining, yet again, that he'd been told he couldn't register until his entries were correct and was henceforth ordered to correct said entries, the politician would add another time penalty to his record and threaten dire consequences if Terrorsaur didn't hurry up the process.

Terrorsaur wasn't entirely sure how one penalized a dead 'bot, but he already knew that while his fists passed through anyone he tried to attack here, they could damage him quite easily. That didn't seem fair in the least to him, but, well, he WAS dead, and this WAS the Pit. The life of a Predacon wasn't conducive to an afterlife of fluffy clouds and harps. It was in his interest to register as quickly as possible, because no matter how bad he thought it was, there was always a form--to be filled out and filed in triplicate, probably--to make it worse.

Half the time he wondered if he hadn't already entered the Pit, and this was his eternal punishment: paperwork forevermore.

He was jolted out of his thoughts by a loud thud. "Looking up, Terrorsaur blinked at the slip of paper being held out to him by the Decepticon. "You're done? That was quick." Too quick; bad sign.

"No," the desk-jockey said, and the Predacon flinched as he took the paper. "You need to take this to the Directory Operator. I can't find the planet you died on." He frowned, dull puzzlement in uncaring optics. "Are you sure it wasn't Earth?"

"Two moons," Terrorsaur insisted, holding up two fingers as he read over the paper. "Directory Operator…is that in this building, or do I have to go back to the Office of Mis--uh, Fatal Registrations?"

"Fourth floor, Office of Fatal Registrations."

"Oh, joy."

Somehow, half an eon later--don't ever ask someone standing in line to measure time--this all led to Terrorsaur being dragged by the old, familiar evil politician to a higher-ranking, unfamiliar, and probably eviler, politician. This politician looked like the first, only more so. All of the Pit's employees/torturers all had an interchangeable air of bureaucratic drudgery hanging over their features. The only way Terrorsaur could tell who was in charge was by the level of apathy: if someone was actively getting in his way, it was an authority figure and had probably been a politician before it died. That would have meant he wanted to avoid them, anyway, but in the Pit he rarely had that liberty.

It had occurred to him, as he was being dragged through never-ending dreary corridors, that this higher authority might just beat the slag out of him instead of slapping yet another penalty onto his record. Just because he couldn't touch anyone here didn't mean THEY couldn't hurt HIM, and pain didn't stop being pain after death.

So he started talking the moment he saw the higher-up. This one was a Maximal, which at least proved that the love of redundant paperwork was universal among Cybertron's factions. "This is NOT my fault," Terrorsaur protested before anyone could start in on him. "Nobody knows what the name of the planet I died on was, but I didn't die on Earth! And obviously I couldn't have died before I was sparked, but every time I apply to change the date, the Powers That Be revert it back to the original entry. Take it up with THEM if you have a problem!" He shot nervous glances around the room, automatically looking for an escape. Unless he counted hiding underneath the desk, escape was a dead end. He began to feel the way he had when Megatron had cornered him: full of fear-energy with nowhere to run, and his voice climbed to an unpleasantly irritating screech. "My cause of death entry has been corrected, hasn't it? Isn't that enough?!"

"The final two entries have been put on hold," the Maximal interrupted his hysteria. "Your case is pending. Until then, however, we have to find something to do with you." Terrorsaur eyed him warily, not liking the look of the stack of papers now being held out to him. He'd had to read through too many stacks that looked just like that to assume it was good, or even mediocre, news. "This is your new assignment," the Maximal said as the red pterodactyl took it and began to flip through the pages.

Terrorsaur looked up, optics wide, only a couple paragraphs in. "You're not serious!"

The whole room began to fade from sight, but the politician leaned forward and smiled unhelpfully. "We don't joke. Don't worry, Terrorsaur. This is only until your registration clears." As Terrorsaur disappeared from the Pit, he was almost certain he heard ominous laughter follow that statement.

Somehow, it didn't fill him with confidence that the assignment was temporary.

He reappeared back in a place he'd never expected to see again, much less how he saw it now. He felt so…small. "This is ridiculous," he muttered to Waspinator, settling down on his fellow Predacon's left shoulder to read his assignment. Being dead, of course, he didn't expect an answer to his grumbling.

Which is why he shrieked and nearly fell over backward when someone did: "I know what you mean," Airazor said from her perch on the wasp's other shoulder. She watched with no little amusement as the dead red Predacon flailed his arms and accidentally created a paper blizzard when he lost his grip. Transforming from beast mode, she leapt up to crouch on Waspinator's head so she could look down on the show.

Terrorsaur's shrieking fit only got worse when he saw who it was who was talking. "What are you doing here?!" he screamed, then sputtered and cut himself off with another question. "You can SEE me?" He blinked. "You're as small as me. You're…dead?"

"Brilliant deduction. Dying didn't make you any quicker on the uptake, I see." The Maximals blue optics sparkled with mischief.

He almost launched himself at her for an old-fashioned tackle--crude was often effective, as he'd found in the past with this particular flyer--but caught himself at the last second. He didn't know why Airazor was here, but it was a fair bet that if she was dead, she was supposed to be. If so, he was better off finding out what he was supposed to be doing before he screwed it up and was buried in yet more paperwork for his foolishness. Standing in lines for eternity on end had finally taught him to rein in his impetuousness. "I," he announced, "am going to finish reading. You, go over on his other shoulder and leave me alone." With that, he proceeded to ignore her and went about gathering his papers.

She didn't obey him, but she did restrain the next few comments that flew to mind. She grinned instead and sat down more comfortably, crossing her legs primly as she watched Terrorsaur find a new seat on the green-yellow Predacon's shoulder. He sat with his back against Waspinator's neck this time, legs stretched out in front of him. This had the side effect of letting Airazor read along with him, but he didn't seem concerned by that. A couple paragraphs into the document, and she understood why.

He must have been waiting for her stifled moan as the headache bloomed. "Believe it or not, you get used to it," Terrorsaur said, a smirk in his voice. "I can almost translate this into something readable by now."

Staring down at the back of his head, she decided that he really wasn't kidding. She gave it another try, but whatever language had been used to write that paper used words in ways she'd never seen before. Her disgusted snort was met with a scratchy chuckle, but Terrorsaur didn't look up. She left him to his reading and looked around.

Waspinator dozed beneath her feet, the sporadic flutter of his wings the only motion in the room. For some reason, he'd fallen into recharge slumped backward in a chair, arms draped over the back and head resting between them. He'd been asleep when she arrived, but that would change soon if her sense of time was correct. Well, if this Predacon woke with the sun. She didn't have much of an idea of what Predacon base life was like, but if it was anything like the Maximal base, the day shift started at dawn.

She frowned thoughtfully at the green-yellow Predacon's room. While not as disorganized as she'd expected, evidence of a half a dozen projects lay abandoned in the corners. The rest of the room had layers of dust and grime she also hadn't expected. From the looks of things, Waspinator not only didn't clean the place, but didn't spend much time here at all. Why?

The curious question came out before she could stop herself, and Terrorsaur looked up at her. "'Why' what?" he asked without much interest, returning most of his attention to the papers.

What could it hurt to ask? "Why is this place such a dump? It's not like the rest of your base is clean, but I'd kind of expected something better from your quarters." She gestured at the dusty floor. Except for footsteps leading to the chair and some ripples from air currents from Waspinator's wings, it covered everything. "This looks abandoned."

He looked up long enough to give the place a glance. "Probably is. We used to share Scorpinok's room when we recharged." He caught her disbelieving stare and shrugged. "He had the biggest room. One of us was always on duty, anyway, and there's safety in numbers when it comes to avoiding Tarantulas' newest gadget testing. He used to love trapping Waspinator's berth." Terrorsaur shook his head in remembered irritation. "It was safer to sleep on the floor with Scorpinok around than try your luck by yourself." She tried to imagine that, and shuddered when she could.

The last page turned over finally, and the red Predacon stood up, folding his arms and tilting his head to look at her. "So, how did a Maximal like you pull this slag assignment? Are you in bureaucratic limbo, too?"

"Sort of," Airazor said after a moment's thought. "They told Tigatron and me that we're not dead yet, so we can't get into the Matrix."

"Wait, what?!" His boosters kicked in, and he flew up to give her a once-over. She looked just like him: small and slightly transparent. "You're not dead?"

She shook her head. "Not according to the Autobot who sent me here."

"How do you…not die?" He held up a hand suddenly. "And don't tell me you're another Starscream, because the only reason he's still wandering around is because somebody in the Pit lost all his information, and I don't think the Matrix would mess up like that."

That earned him a blank stare, but Airazor apparently decided she didn't want to know. "It has something to do with the alien plant that destroyed my body--" His flat look cut her off. "What? What's wrong?"

"Alien plant."

"Yes. It sucked me and Tigatron up and--"

The flat look, if possible, got flatter. "Maximal, why don't you pretend that you're talking to someone who has no idea what slag has been happening in the Beast Wars since he died? In fact, don't pretend."

"Ah." The bird blinked at him for a long moment, collecting her thoughts. "Right. Well, when the Transwarp blast hit the planet and--Where's Scorpinok, if I may ask?"

Terrorsaur glanced around the room. "Somewhere in the base, I would guess, probably surgically attached to Megatron's aft. What does he have to do with anything? Did he grow the alien plant?" The last came out with a hint of a sneer. As unexpected as the Beast Wars had been, an alien plant that sucked up Maximals and didn't quite kill them pushed the limits of credibility.

Airazor cocked her head. "No, he died when you did."

"He…did?" He stared at her, mouth drooping slightly open as his mind wrapped around that tidbit of information. It was like finding a toy at the bottom of a box of arsenic-laced cereal; good news, but told a little late to celebrate over. He wondered vaguely if Scorpinok had fit into the bureaucracy of the Pit--it seemed like his kind of place--or if he was put through the paperwork run-around, too. While it didn't upset him at all that the smarmy scorpion was dead--huzzah!--it DID upset him that there was the possibility of running into him in the afterlife. Actually running into ANYONE he knew in the afterlife gave him fits of paranoia. Fighting old enemies for an eternity didn't quite sound as bad as paperwork, but Airazor was, uh, living proof that it certainly wasn't paradise. He felt like a big target had been painted on his backside. "Are there any OTHER dead 'bots I should know about?"

"…yes."

"Ugh. Take this slow. I think you might break my mind."

She smiled sweetly and let the straight line go for the moment. There would be time enough later to humiliate him. After all, no one in the Matrix had ever said that the Good Conscience had to play fair when fighting for a spark's redemption…

.

* * *

.

* * *

_I had a poem for a placehold for this idea. The ficlet brings demons and angels into a much more Beast Wars-canon plot. Something about the poem still makes me grin._

_Basically, it's the idea that Waspinator almost dies every time he gets blown apart in battle. Therefore, Good and Evil converge on his spark, both sides wanting him. It has to do with how Waspinator never quite seems as evil as all the other Predacons, and how in the end he defies Megatron. So who gets his spark? The demons have a natural claim. Well, he plays blackjack with the Devil and wins his spark back, but his spark is, after all, a Predacon's. The angels look at this offering of a dark soul and are charmed. He is a loveable little Pred, wandering all over Earth and creating humor where none really belongs. This is high entertainment for Good and Evil, of course. When he dies, they want him, and nobody can decide who really gets him, so they let him go for just one more day, and into the CR Tank he goes._

_Slaggit, he's just cute like that._


	25. Faith of the Lost

**Faith of the Lost**

* * *

It was a job for someone else, perhaps Waspinator or the new fuzor, Quickstrike. Inferno would have done it without complaint, although he might have been confused that the dead drone had possessions of his own to be cleared out of the room before someone else could use it. In the ant's warped world, everything belonged to the colony as a collective, and therefore to the Queen. Having possessions of one's own was a foreign concept to him. He still would have obeyed the order had it been given, however, which was part of the reason Megatron didn't give that order, to him or anyone else. To them, it was a duty and a possible treasure-trove to loot through.

To him, it was goodbye.

Strangely, it really hadn't struck him as REAL until then. The loyal follower was gone, his slightly daft questions and comments never to be heard again. The quasi-friend had died, his remains melted into the lava and nothing but his memory lingered in the corners of this room. Megatron opened the door and looked around, struck again by the scientist's tidiness. The table was placed just SO. The equipment transplanted from the lab it belonged in arranged just HERE. He wasn't entirely certain what the scorpion's last project had been, and he peered at the myriad of tools and tubes on the table in mystification. Glass, plastic, and steel looped in a methodical combination that made no sense to him whatsoever. It was an oddly reassuring effect of order and mystery that reminded him weirdly of Scorpinok's personality. The scorpion had been open and trusting in ways most Predacons couldn't afford to be, reading like a display screen to Megatron's experienced optics.

…except that during the weeks leading up to the screaming, fatal fall into the lava, the screen had blurred. Scorpinok had pulled back, something closing inside him that rendered his thoughts a mystery. Megatron had been busy himself and had presumed it had something to do with this new experiment. He scanned the table again but quickly gave up trying to understand its intricacies. Maybe if he found the scorpion's notes, he'd give them to Tarantulas with orders to finish it. He couldn't quite understand why it had been so important to the scorpion that this invention succeed, but surely there must have been some sort of value in it to have changed his behavior for those weeks. It hadn't mattered all that much that Scorpinok hadn't been around since Inferno had arrived by then, and Megatron had indulged his interest in…whatever this was.

In a way, it was a shame that Scorpinok had been so involved in his invention. They had been drawing apart, Scorpinok's doubts in him becoming more evident even as his loyalty stayed steady. Megatron knew the scorpion would have guarded his back in any fight, but at the same time, he might have started to ask why they were fighting. It was a conflict of interests, the Predacon staying loyal but the friend drifting away, and neither of them knew what to do to stop it. Megatron had purposefully, angrily, held himself aloof, refusing to acknowledge--as he always had--that they had ever been anything like friends at all. Neither of them had ever actually SAID anything about it, but there had always been that look of…of something, when Scorpinok had looked at him. Something that set him aside from other 'bots that had started out loyal to him as their commander. It was, he thought as he sorted through the few personal belongings on the shelves, the biggest difference between Inferno and Scorpinok. Inferno was a soldier, pure and simple, with no thought of his own; Scorpinok would think for himself and then follow Megatron's lead anyway.

It made all the difference, now that he stopped to think about it. The other Predacons tolerated or outright hated him, and Inferno treated him as, well, royalty. Scorpinok alone had treated him as someone to listen to, possibly argue with, and look up to. He'd been a bit slow, known it, and relied on Megatron's intelligence to command his own limited intellect, putting his brief moments of scientific inspiration at the tyrant's feet. He hadn't blindly obeyed, but he'd obeyed because he believed. Or, at least, he HAD.

Something had changed. Something that Megatron hadn't wanted to think about but had to now, sorting the few possessions the scorpion had left behind. The doubt had increased, the reassuring look decreased, and the only Predacon he could even think of as being something approaching a friend (with qualifications, of course, because tyrants just didn't have friends, nooo) had become a soldier. A loyal soldier, yes, but just a soldier. He could wonder, sitting on the room's lone chair safely away from maliciously curious optics, why it happened. Had it been, as had been explained in an awkward, round-about way, that Megatron had failed the scorpion? Had he reached too far and fallen short of success, but in the reaching distanced himself from the one 'bot who truly cared if he succeeded?

Then WHY, in Cybertron's name, had it happened? Why then, and not earlier or later? If it had been a gradual thing, what had triggered the realization and resolution to cut them apart? Megatron would have never done it, refusing to acknowledge what bound them even that much. It had been up to Scorpinok, and the scorpion had approached it in his usual fumbling, honest way that Megatron recalled in an analysis that pained him (but he wouldn't admit it, noo). There had been more than just forgotten, fading friendship in Scopinok's secluded behavior for the past weeks. He had noticed in a vague way but hadn't let himself think of it. He'd had too many plots coinciding at once, and other minions that were useful--why should he waste his time puzzling over one Predacon's behavior? He'd dismissed it as involvement in an experiment because it was easier that way. But…there had been real betrayal in Scorpinok's hunched shoulders and turned head.

Betrayal of what?

Megatron let his mind tick as he placed the scraps of living into a box of plasteel. Normally he'd at least pretend to be taking a deceased subordinate's belongings to the designated heir, but as far as he knew, Scorpinok had cut all such ties to follow when he called. That left him with a box of CyberBee parts, datapads, and a dissembled missile. He had no idea what he'd do with it, but he'd rather have it under his protection than let the other Predacons steal whatever they wanted from Scopinok's things. He avoided thinking about why he cared enough to do this himself. Even if he thought about it, it wouldn't make sense. Nothing about this made sense: Scorpinok's changed behavior, the clinically neat room, the crazed confusion of glass and metal on the table, the technobabble notes--and what the slag was so important about this invention, anyway? Had it been just to occupy Scorpinok's mind? It didn't make sense, and it didn't help Megatron understand what the underlying reasons all were.

There had to be something. There was ALWAYS some reason in common. He sighed, giving up for the moment, and brought the box to his own quarters for safe keeping. On a whim, he downloaded the project notes and sent them to Tarantulas. Perhaps the spider knew what they were about. Moments after the files were sent, however, the Predacon computer alerted him to an incoming message. He read it over and frowned.

Tarantulas had said, quite simply, "There's no way you could have designed this. It's brilliant. Where's the rest of it?"

The tyrant couldn't decide if he should be insulted or amused that the spider had, for once in his miserable existence and unintentionally at that, given Scorpinok's work the title of 'Brilliant.' He eventually settled for being slightly annoyed and sent off a message directing Tarantulas to meet him in Scorpinok's quarters.

The spider was already there by the time he walked in, fussing with obvious delight over the table. Whatever the thing was, it was enough to make the conniving spider drop his guard and show his admiration of it. "Ingenious. Are you certain, tehehe, that Scorpinok built this?" Transmetal claws ran covetously over tubes and collectors with the kind of reverence only another scientist could understand. There was a brief hesitation and an inquiring glance at him--for permission, Megatron realized with concealed surprise--before Tarantulas began transferring the entire, complex mass onto a cart he'd commandeered from where it had been propped against the wall. "Shell-Head never seemed the kind to come up with something like this. What was it originally for?"

The spider was looking at him, again. He feigned indifference and waved his hand over the table. "Why ask me? It is Scopinok's work, is it not?"

Tarantulas' chuckle had the harsh edge of real laughter in it this time. "Since when did that moron do anything that wasn't for you, in one way or another?" Still chuckling, he tenderly placed the last component onto the cart and checked that it was stable before wheeling it from the room. His voice floated behind him, "Your plans have always included us all. I think you proved that quite conclusively recently."

He stared after the spider, turning that over in his mind. The ticking picked up the pace like a timebomb reaching the final countdown after being fed an additional nuclear insight, but he let the ideas simmer as a more urgent thought leapt to the forefront of his mind. "Tarantulas! What does it do?" he shouted. Only silence answered him, even the creaking of the cart disappearing as he looked out the door into the hall. The spider had vanished. "Treacherous arachnid," he growled, retreating back into the room to think.

This time, he sat on the recharge platform. The room was mostly featureless with the table's extravagant centerpiece and its accompanying flock of notes gone. In place of the Scorpinok he'd known, all that remained were clues and shadows left in a form familiar only by what it had been previously. There was bitterness in that thought, but he couldn't make himself examine the reason for it. A part of him was uneasy over what he'd discover about himself if he did. Instead, he sought to solve the puzzle; retreat, betrayal, and an invention built for him…but why would the scorpion have built him something without coming to him first? Had they been so estranged that Scorpinok avoided him out of principle? The loyal scorpion wouldn't have turned anything against him, so Tarantulas had to be right: the thing had been built for him. Maybe as a surprise? What purpose was there for a surprise, if they had become nothing but commander and subordinate?

Frustration made his head ache, and Megatron stood up to pace. There was a link between it all, there HAD to be, and he just had to find it. It was something about the timing, he knew it! Everything seemed to come back to Scorpinok's withdrawal from him, supposedly to work on his project but more probably to nurse wounded feelings. If the timing had been right, then the break in their peculiar friendship would have been clean and natural, marked only by Scorpinok's (not his, never his) realization of it. The timing had have been wrong to have caused a different reaction in the scorpion. The timing..?

He stopped and stared across the room at the recharge platform, not really seeing it for all the intensity of his look. The timing was important, and there was something familiar about it as well. He counted back the weeks, trying to remember why it was significant. Nothing but the scorpion's odd withdrawal came to mind that week, however. He hadn't paid much attention, busy with other things and able to depend on Inferno's unquestioning, ungrudging support.

Ah, yes, Inferno. It had taken remembering the dead to realize why he valued and yet despised the ant. At first, Inferno had seemed the perfected version of Scorpinok, but he saw now what was lacking in the ant's vacant worship. No matter how much he enjoyed the blind loyalty and unquestioning support, there was always something missing in the madly-grinning face that stayed upturned to him. Every once and a while, Scorpinok had turned away, and it made him regret the missing scorpion's death all the more. While he didn't like to admit his mistakes, it was best to have someone who would point them out with something other than a gun.

Megatron winced. He hadn't wanted to think that. Since he couldn't unthink it, however, he might as well admit it.

So. It had been a mistake. His, in specific. What his mistake had been, exactly, he was determinedly not-thinking, because he had the sinking feeling that it was a mistake compounded upon mistake, and there was no way to correct this engorged error. Besides, he was struggling with his ego and self-image enough over just admitting something was his fault. It was more of a subconscious acceptance than real admission, anyway. A minor concession no one needed to know about. Scorpinok had taken that entire chain of mistakes to his molten grave, and it was for the best, really.

He noticed, suddenly, that he was staring at something more than the platform. Underneath it, there was a dull gleam of light on glass that he guessed correctly was another datapad. When he pulled it out into the open, he hoped snidely that it was something essential to Tarantulas' meddling with Scorpinok's invention. It would serve the back-stabbing arachnid right. Unfortunately for his hopes, it turned out to be an archival datapad, meant for read-only and downloading. A series of parallel scratches were etched into the glass of the read-out, deep enough that the screen would have to be replaced to get rid of them and too evenly placed to be anything but intentional. That was curious in itself, but the sloppy hiding place of the datapad contrasted sharply with the meticulous organization characteristic of the rest of Scorpinok's belongings. Either it had been accidentally knocked under the platform and never found, or...

Megatron thoughtfully sat down, then lay down on the recharge platform, letting his arm hang down to the floor. As he had suspected, his hand came close to where he'd found the datapad. Convenience, then, or carelessness. While it wasn't unknown for the other Predacons to poke around in their fellow warriors' rooms, Scorpinok probably hadn't worried about anyone searching out this spot. What was it? Some light reading for the scorpion before he went offline for a rest period?

The mauled screen lit to show an index. A familiar one, and Megatron's optics widened in surprise as he read over the book headings. When had the scorpion downloaded this? He had a somewhat eccentric archive, and he was fairly certain this had to have come from his collection. It was an…unusual reading choice. Part of it might have to do with the planet they had been searching for, the Earth Scorpinok had not lived to discover they had actually found. It was still an odd thing to read. Megatron skimmed through the index again, finally seeing that two books were highlighted by frequent use. Even as he reprimanded himself for his interest in a 'bot dead and gone, he opened one of the files and read through the short chapters as if they were a window into the scorpion's mind.

And they were.

He would have missed it if the verses hadn't triggered something in him. The ticking of his mind stopped short, stuck on the words that completed a puzzle he wasn't sure he wanted to see in its entirety. "'Was not Esau Jacob's brother?'" he quoted in a soft murmur, fitting piece to piece and unraveling a story that disturbed him on whatever level allowed for such things as regret and friendship. "'Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.'"

Troubled, he pored over the book again, even looking up the story behind the names and hoping with a kind of listless hope that he had been wrong, but it was the lowest, most uncontrollable depths of his mind that had connected the dots first. Just as he couldn't make himself disregard Scorpinok entirely, he couldn't turn away now. He reread the verses again, then opened up the other highlighted book. This one was longer, the chapter subjects more diverse, and he wouldn't have seen anything in particular if not for the scratched glass of the screen. The scratches were perfectly parallel, and spaced to fit exactly between the lines of text. Once he noticed that, it was only a matter of time before he fit the scratches to the verses they underlined.

For a long time afterward, he simply read and reread the short lines. Slowly, his optics rose to study the abandoned table and its missing burden of desperate inventiveness. The ticking thoughts had stopped, the shrapnel of the bomb lodged in memories and previous assumptions, changing his perception of the situations past and present. Scorpinok's withdrawal, and this new experiment meant to please, meant to vie for the tyrant's favor, and the timing had been all wrong. It had been Megatron's mistake. Not that week, but the week before, when a damaged stasis pod had birthed a soldier that had taken the place of a 'bot who had been a friend, been a loyal follower, and who had been forced to see too soon that he was losing the chance to stay at Megatron's side at all. Maybe it had been the gradual loss of the friend that had alerted (but not offended, noo) the tyrant, but reacting by replacing the scorpion completely had been the wrong choice. He could see that now, but hindsight was always much clearer.

Rising, Megatron made his way to the door. There was nothing he could do here, besides regret too little and too late the circumstances leading to Scorpinok's death. It wasn't like they had been friends (not real friends, never real friends), and it wasn't like he really cared what Scorpinok had died thinking. In the end, Scorpinok had been just another soldier, and Megatron would not allow his memory to haunt him. That would require him to feel guilty, after all, and he didn't. Some regret, yes, but just as the scorpion's belongings had been packed away into a box for safe keeping, so would Megatron close up all the thoughts connected to this room and its dead occupant. When he walked out the door, everything would be left behind.

But he hesitated, standing in the threshold. If he had been the one lost in the lava, the other Predacons would have celebrated, or in the case of Inferno, found a new Queen and moved on. This soldier, unique among the Predacons, would have mourned his passing. Out of respect, Megatron at least owed him a word of farewell. Hadn't he realized today what he had lost in losing Scorpinok? Surely that deserved that some closure.

He searched for words, but all he could find were the words Scorpinok had obsessed over for the last few weeks: "'The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?"'"

Although he hadn't intended them to sound so, the questions came out slightly accusing, asking in the undertone why such a lack of faith in the scorpion's 'Lord.' Yet Scorpinok had been the one rejected, replaced without explanation and taken out of favor to wonder in ignorance if that was it. To wonder if his position had been taken from him because of some enlightened choice, or if he had done something wrong. Had he ever wondered if his commander had screwed up, or had he always assumed that he was the one to blame? There was no evidence of doubt left behind. Scorpinok had sought an answer to something without a solution or even a clear question.

Knowing his mistake, the Predacon tyrant gazed distantly at the table that had once held an offering of all the best in Scorpinok and repeated the question as if he could change what his response would have been.

"'…will you not be accepted?'"

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_This will require some explanation._

_I seem to be using quotes to inspire these things recently, and this ficlet came from Genesis 4:3-7 (not all of the verses, just the middle part) and Malachi 1:2-3. I know it seems strange that I, of all people, would quote from the Bible, but I have a somewhat extensive knowledge of the book._

_From that, I chose one of the many viewpoints held on the Bible passages and ran with it. I've been told that Cain failed the Lord because his offering wasn't a representation of everything he had. God did not favor him because he was too independent to surrender fully, basically. Unlike Inferno, Scorpinok couldn't give up the last of himself to Megatron and become nothing but a drone. Unlike Cain, the scorpion blamed himself and tried to make up for his shortcomings in Megatron's optics._

_At the same time, however, Scorpinok was also like Esau. I feel terrible for Esau. I read the footnotes in Malachi, and apparently the apostle Paul explains the hatred of Esau as predestination. God CHOSE Jacob. I can't help but be pained for Esau's sorry life. The guy never had a chance; God chose to hate him. Megatron chose to favor Inferno over Scorpinok, despite Scorpinok's unwavering loyalty. The scorpion was the one discarded, the one thrown into self-doubt. I think it says a lot about Scorpinok loyalty and identity that he blamed only himself. I'm sure Megatron picked up on that, too, far too late._

_I think it's a completely different take on one of the most ignored Predacons. _


	26. Gimme Some Sugar

**Gimme Some Sugar**

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_::You'll never get away with this, you rusting piece of scum,::_ she hissed, a prisoner in her own body.

Tarantulas merely cackled mentally in reply, keeping the sleek widow form silent as he prowled through the corridors of the Predacon base with the stolen body. He really had no plan for what he was doing. It was being made up as he went, plotting for the twinges of difference he found with every careful step in the unfamiliar feeling of being inside her. His own body lay in a stupor in his lair, but he hoped that with experience he'd be able to control her with less attention paid to each movement. As it was, Blackarachnia fought him for control and her own body was too dissimilar to his own to manipulate with confidence. To deceive anyone watching them, he would have to imitate the black widow's body language accurately enough to seem normal. Preventing questions about her state of mind was as easy as making sure the questions never occurred.

Of course, easy wasn't as easy as he wished it was. But he was getting better.

_::You couldn't fool a blind Maximal!::_

And would the lovely, dangerous, TRAPPED widow like to make a bet on that?

_::Why? So you can try and get me in trouble with Megatron again? That would hardly serve either of our purposes!::_ Blackarachnia pulled at the web binding her mental form, frustrated once again by the outside force holding her captive. _::You know you couldn't pull it off.::_

Hehehehe, couldn't he? He wasn't so sure. Striding around a corner with all the aggressive feminine anger he could imitate, he thought that his facade of Blackarachnia was coming along quite nicely. It was a matter of footwork, strangely enough. How odd that it had taken being IN the widow's body to figure out what exactly it took to duplicate that slinking, devilishly attractive walk; a simple matter of sliding onto the foot instead of stepping firmly, the knee snapping straight and bringing the hip into swaying curve that had haunted his thoughts far too often when she had first emerged from her statis pod. Beautiful temptress full of honey-sweetened poisoned words that she was, working from the inside out he was beginning to understand how and why she fell so easily into the role. To act like her he had to figure out why what she did affected him so, then xerox it with all the intentions of the female he'd ensnared. It was amazing what a simple heated glance could do when combined with Blackarachnia's patented Strut (TM) through the base's passages.

Blackarachnia, for some reason, had not been so amused when he'd experimented with this new concept. Seizing control during a brief conversation with Megatron had resulted in the tyrant becoming violently flustered. Tarantulas hadn't done more than let his optics meet the T-Rex's for a moment more than he personally would have even considered, the spideress' tongue flickering out to lick her upper lip--and Megatron had gotten the strangest look of confusion on his face. It had passed in barely an instant, Tarantulas losing control of Blackarachnia's body back to her just in time for the switch in Megatron's head to go from 'Confused With Situation' to 'Spider Doing Something Suspicious--Lose Temper NOW.' Hehehehehehe...

_::It wasn't funny to me, you rotting pile of slag,::_ Blackarachnia spat as his chuckling echoed across the mental world she was webbed into.

Tarantulas realized he'd become distracted by internal happenings when he rounded the next corner and ran smack into Quickstrike.

"Sugarbot!"

_::Now you've done it!::_

Tarantulas stared up in surprise from the floor he hadn't expected to be knocked down to. His frame was usually the heavier one in this kind of situation. Actually, he was rather surprised that Blackarachnia hadn't stolen his moment of distraction to seize control again, however briefly.

"Sugarbot, Ah--"

He batted away the proffered hand-legs and stood up on his own, brushing Blackarachnia's body off with a fussy snarl. "Watch where you're going, fuzor! I could have been hurt!" He angled his head, apparently looking down at one of the golden spider-legs on a black arm as if inspecting it for damage while keeping a careful optic on the scorpion/snake fuzor. Quickstrike looked crestfallen by the rebuff. That was no surprise. The newest Predacon might be as dense as a brick, but his feelings for the spideress were transparent. Blackarachnia took some sort of delight in tormenting the 'bot, brimming with feminine seduction one moment and full of bad-tempered witchery the next.

Quickstrike reached out again, realized he was offering his snake-arm, and hastily switched 'hands.' "Ah'm awful sorry, Sugarbot. Ya can't hold that against me! C'mon, Ah'll take ya back ta yur quarters and Ah'll make it up to ya..." He trailed off, a little frustrated that he couldn't put it more eloquently but hopeful when she didn't immediately smack him for suggesting the idea.

In truth, Tarantulas was finding himself in the difficult position of holding in his laughter for once. His chuckling rang across the mindscape, and he had to force himself to restrain it in the real world. Dense as a brick and just as subtle. No wonder Blackarachnia had such mood swings!

_::See what I have to put up with around here? He's the complete opposite of the dog fuzor!::_ Blackarachnia slumped in her prison, knowing she was sulking but not caring._ ::At least you were a little more delicate about it.::_

That made the laughter easier to control. Yes, he had sought Blackarachnia as eagerly as this fuzor when she was new from her statis pod. She had been so hard to resist...and as treacherous then as she was now. She planned to use this fuzor, for amusement or plotting, and it made Tarantulas suspicious. There was nothing solid to build his suspicions on beside the widow's inherent danger, but still...hmmmhehehehehe...he might as well stick to character while he was in control.

_::What are you up to?!::_ Blackarachnia demanded as sinister chuckling echoed through her mind. _::Tarantulas? Tarantulas!::_

The tarantula ignored her and moved forward, prompting a nervous step backward by the fuzor before he ran into the wall behind him. Yellow/black claws ran up Quickstrike's chestplate, and Tarantulas narrowed green-tinted black optics. The fuzor had obviously been bitten before by his 'Sugarbot,' but that wasn't what Tarantulas intended today.

_::What the SLAG are you DOING?!::_

"Uh...S-Sugarbot?" Quickstrike stared at her in wide-eyed shock as the spideress' arms twined behind his neck, a curtain of spider legs cutting off the rest of the corridor and leaving him in a small world of her smug face closing in on his. "Wh-wha..?"

Soft metal met, molded, warmed. Pressed against the fuzor, Tarantulas wondered at the--the--WEIRDNESS of the situation. Quickstrike's arms were against the wall behind him from the shock, helping to support him as the spider kissed him. There was no feeling behind the motion for the spider, but the other Predacon seemed about to melt into a puddle of overheated metal. Feeling somewhat disappointed at the experience, Tarantulas pulled away slowly and turned to go. He thought he'd done quite a good job at fooling someone into thinking he was Blackarachnia, didn't she?

_::You IDIOT!::_

Oooh, had the little black widow not liked kissing Quickstrike? Poor her. Too bad.

He chuckled, then clamped his mouth shut when he realized he'd done that out loud. A quick glance back showed that Quickstrike was too dazed to have noticed his slip. A sudden feeling disorientation swept over him as their optics met, and--

"Maybe next time, Quickstrike." Yellow lips curved in a sly smile.

--he was back in control, bewildered by the shift. He turned around and hurriedly resumed his walk down the corridor to hide his confusion. What had just happened?!

This time it was Blackarachnia's rich laughter that rang across the mindscape.

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_There really aren't enough fanfics with Tarantulas inside Blackarachnia's head..._


	27. Fade With Time

**Fade with Time**

* * *

Autumn was such a melancholy time of year.

Strange how he had never really noted the differences as time passed on Cybertron, or perhaps not; there weren't any plants or animals to show the changing of the seasons like they did here, after all. He wondered suddenly if he would miss this cool season when he returned home. Would he think back on the bright splashes of color as the trees changed, or the odd smell in the corridors of the Axalon as Rattrap hoarded food for no logical, Cybertronian reason? Would he miss the darker colors spreading on Cheetor and himself? Of course, he'd find out about that last when they returned to the area of the base. The plains surrounding the Axalon didn't experience such a dramatic change as the planet circled the sun, and he had the feeling that his new winter color would quickly fade out again in the heat. What a shame that something that looked so splendid would soon be gone, but the mission was ending. They'd have to return soon, or the Predacons would notice that he and Cheetor had slipped away.

It had been a pleasant thing to fulfill his primary function, even for a little while. He'd felt sorry that Rhinox had needed to stay behind, but only Cheetor could fly, a precaution against returning quickly in case of an attack. Nothing had happened, however, and Cheetor had enthusiastically helped him survey the area as summer slipped easily into fall. Dinobot, no matter how much fun he was to tease, hadn't been as fun a companion in his work. Of course, being this far away from the base only reminded him of who his previous partner had been, flying with him far away from the Axalon to explore this fascinating world...

He shook himself from his thoughts, then felt sad that they had let him go so easily. It felt like she was disappearing from him, hiding in the past while he moved on to the future. Most of the time he barely even remembered her, but every once and a while something would remind him, pricking at his mind. She was only one of three crew members he'd lost on this world, but with such a small crew the loss was hard. He thought, somewhat guiltily, that if there were more Maximals here with him he wouldn't have felt the loss so badly, but the pain wasn't nearly so hard to bear any more. Just spurts and flashes of it, when he was reminded of her.

Optimus Primal looked down at the hawk feather he'd found on the ground, a gentle look of sorrow in his optics. Sometimes it felt like his memories of her were fading, like colors in the sun. Someday the color would be gone completely, lost in the background of other friends, past and present.

Autumn was such a melancholy time of year.

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It always bothered me that by the end of Season 2 and in Season 3, nobody ever seemed to care that they'd lost Airazor and Tigatron. They just kinda disappeared. Call this a "behind the scenes" moment.


	28. Priority Code

**Priority Code**

* * *

It struck him hard at times how unfair it was that the first casualties of war were civilians.

Oh, it was a fact Dinobot had known for most of his life. He'd even seen it happen before. It was just that…warriors didn't typically come into contact with civilians. Not the same ones time after time, anyway. Warriors were the part of civilization that civilized robots kept on long leashes: tightly controlled but at a distance so as to not bring the savages near. One never knew if the pristine ivory towers could be contaminated with bloodlust by contact, after all. Best not to tempt fate. The civilians created their armies and paid tribute in fear for what they had made to protect themselves.

It led the soldiers to internalize as much as they were ostracized. It led to a culture that could not be understood by the civilians outside looking in; codes of honor, bootcamps meant to indoctrinate the outsiders, and hazing to make sure these outsiders were up to standards that were often disparaged by the wary civilization that looked on but never participated. A thousand rules that ensured the soldiers had a strict routine to live by. It made them uniform and closed their ranks to the outside culture. These things ensured that they would live a little longer in war. It kept their minds hard and sharp. Civilians were a soft influence soldiers couldn't afford.

Dinobot had lived and worked with these peaceful Maximals for months. He knew viscerally now what every good warrior learned: involvement gave comrades and enemies alike faces, and faces made death hard, no matter which side it landed on. This time it had landed on the Maximals' and taken Tigatron and Airazor away.

They pretended at fighting, all of these explorers. Behind the necessity of taking up arms against Megatron, they were civilians. And the civilians died first.

He curled up underneath the Axalon's bridge consol and brooded on that. Soon the rat would waddle in and insult him in his nasal whine, and they would patrol. Maybe the kitten would come in first, fresh and hyperactive from running with one of the scientist's new inventions. Optimus Primal, at least, was busy with the fuzor.

All of them would die, just like Tigatron and Airazor.

The tiger he remembered with a certain fondness, although he would never, ever phrase it that way. Beneath the placid exterior, Tigatron's spark had meshed with the heart of a predator. The tiger protected, but it had taken war to strip the protector's gentle paws to the hunter's claws. Necessity made them strange allies, the tiger and the raptor, and he found he missed Tigatron's impassioned speeches on saving the planet from their Cybertronian war. Primal argued, but he became exasperated with Optimus' pig-headedness on certain subjects. Tigatron could see both sides of their arguments and managed to reject Dinobot's points without taking insult at the way the raptor had presented them. Tigatron's veneer of civility made him far more cultured than Dinobot, but he had little difficulty getting along with the warrior's manner. Dinobot had thought that they understood each other because of their differences; despite how different they were from each other, in a way those difference had separated them both from the Maximals. Outsiders stuck together, perhaps?

Dinobot didn't miss the hawk much, but that was to be expected. She was more of a…Maximal than he. More accepted, and more likely to get along with the main group. Plus, she had a bird's-eye view on the war, literally and figuratively. Passion had come to her in quick blazes that spent themselves in the dive and dodge of battle, then leveled out to a mellow soaring. Her predatory nature could and was ignored. As a ground-bound killer, he'd found the bird gliding serenely overhead to be beyond his comprehension. They hadn't understood each other.

But Tigatron had. The tiger had loved her, and despite his grumbles about civilians in combat, Dinobot didn't begrudge him that. Tigatron had been a civilian. Civilians were soft like that. They, unlike warriors, could afford to be. Throughout the months of battle, Dinobot had tried to change these Maximals into soldiers, but now he saw how futile his attempts had been.

The reasons for separation of civilians and soldiers were complicated, but what happened when that separation wasn't kept was simple. The civilians died. Warriors fought and died for them, but it was the civilians who paid the price of their armies and fell. Had a fellow warrior died, Dinobot knew, he would praise the 'bot. Soldiers had different goals, separate from their civilized worlds, and those goals were as hard as their armor. Under the thin purpose of protecting the civilians, a warrior wanted to be remembered. Heroes, villains, or the 'bot at his back--Dinobot remembered them because that was their life. War was their purpose and glory their goal.

What did civilians have? They weren't remembered by war. They were remembered by how they had lived, not how they had fought. Civilians were afraid of battle, and for good reason. To earn honor in war didn't appeal to them. Sometimes Dinobot thought that it actually shamed the Maximals that they fought for their lives. He had tried to force the Maximals into molds that didn't fit, and even after death, Tigatron and Airazor didn't fit. When the other Maximals spoke of them, they didn't talk about Tigatron's stealth in battle or Airazor's marksmanship. They spoke about how the tiger had courted the hawk, and when Airazor had first met Tigatron. Civilian terms of life, kept separate from the warrior ranks, and Dinobot had never felt so lost. Tigatron and Airazor had lived as best they could as civilians in a war, but it had been unfair to hold them to the standards of soldiers. These Maximals were not an army. He was the warrior, and had he done as a warrior should, he would have stood between civilization and what threatened it.

He would remember the dead couple as he knew how, but it struck him hard how unfair it was. Civilians were kept apart for a reason. Warriors were a bulwark between death and civilization, dangerous but ready. They fought and died in the breech. That was how a warrior became a hero, and didn't all warriors want to be remembered?

Dinobot's teeth bared behind his tail as his priorities reorganized, formal as a code, and determination gripped his spark.

No more civilian casualties.

.

* * *

.

* * *

_I suddenly thought that I've looked at Optimus and Cheetor's take at grieving for Airazor and Tigatron. I really had no inspiration for Rhinox or Silverbolt, but what about Dinobot? A little lightbulb went off in my head, and somebody said, "Of COURSE..."_

_So here it is, the extra weight on the Maximals' side when it came time for Dinobot to decide in "Code of a Hero."_


	29. Household Squabbles

**Household Squabbles**

* * *

Quickstrike folded his arms smugly. "Nope."

"Pleeeeeeazze?" Waspinator tried to give the fuzor his most adorable look. Quickstrike remained unfazed, looking down at the wasp with the amused contempt of a bully. Waspinator hated that. It was the same look Terrorsaur used to get, only Two-Head Bot wasn't his friend and had no right to look at him like that. Or to be hiding his flower stash. "Wazzpinator wants flowerzz!" he whined.

"Well, ain't that a shame?"

"Wazzpinator wantzz flowerzz!" Adorable was starting to be marred by the occasional spasm. He'd worked on storing away those flowers ever since he'd figured out that the local area had a cold season. When it was cold, no flowers grew, and he had to feed his addiction for bright objects and sugars somehow! Megatron didn't let Tarantulas synthesize sugars for him anymore, no matter how he buzzed and begged. Given that his luck with explosives tended toward dismemberment and amusing himself otherwise usually ended the same way, flowers and sugar seemed like the safest route. Now all his work came up against the cruel amusement of Two-Head Bot, and Waspinator was annoyed.

Quickstrike just looked smug. "Ya ain't gettin' 'em."

Two-Head Bot was starting to anger Waspinator. Not in the way Maximals did, but in the way Terrorsaur used to. Of course, Terrorsaur knew what he was doing when he gave that little push that popped Waspinator past the point of his usual good-natured self. "Two-Head. Give. Wazzpinator. FLOWERZ!"

He didn't seem to sense his imminent danger. "No."

There was an almost audible pop.

* * *

Rampage glared out the open door of his assigned quarters, his eyes blazing emerald in the red-tinged darkness. The heat in the lower levels was a deliberate insult on Megatron's part, but Rampage wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of complaining about, of all things, his living space. It was dry, it was hot, and it was torture on his beast mode, but he'd climb into the Pit himself before he admitted it. That blustering tyrant would learn soon enough that there was nothing but his spark standing between them. He had quarters, and he'd stay in them until Megatron forced him out. He may have to be a Predacon, but Megatron couldn't force him to socialize. Without socializing, all he knew about his fellow Predacons was from the files he had barely skimmed. Cooperative fighting? Combining firepower? Effective fighting strategy? Not going to happen as long as he stayed isolated in here.

Without leaving his quarters, he could effectively cripple any battle plan the tyrant had, and Megatron knew that he knew it, and theirs was a contest of wills. Hence, the Quarters From the Pit. No lights, no recharge berth, no water in the air whatsoever, enough heat to dry roast him, and some casual comments to let him know that 'bots HAD been known to fall through parts of the floor that had melted. If he wasn't so stubborn, he would have left just to give his beast mode some relief, but now he was settled in. There hadn't been anything out there to tempt him into leaving. All his fellow Predacons were cringing idiots, anyway.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!"

A scream. A buzzing roar. Distant, but coming closer.

Rampage sat up, reaching out for the emotions and blinking in surprise as he found a roiling mass of hatred and anger pursuing fear. Who..?

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!! Boss-bot, 'ferno, Sugar-bot, heeeelp!"

The noise grew to a crescendo, and two blurs shot by the open door. Rampage stared. He'd recognized the voice of the fuzor, but the black and yellow streak--that was that LAST person he'd expect to generate that much hatred!

His joints creaked in protest, too dry to move comfortably, but he got up anyhow. Maybe there was something interesting out there, after all...

.

* * *

.

* * *

_Two ideas that needed exploring: how Quickstrike fit into the Predacons as compared to everyone else Waspinator was used to, and how Megatron got Rampage to actually cooperate with the other Predacons._


	30. One Hundred Different Plans

**One Hundred Different Plans**

* * *

Deep in the lava-lit darkness of the Predacon base, Quickstrike dreamed of glory. He dreamed of dozens of enemies, throwing himself into a score of battles, and winning every one. He dreamed of the Maximals gory in defeat, and himself riding high in victory. In the depths of sleep, the fuzor came up with plans for the war and plans for Blackarachnia, plans for Tarantulas and Megatron and Optimus Primal. Parades of irrational thought connected and reconnected, bending the laws of the universe so that he always came out on top. Victory and violence were the ultimate goals of every plan, and it didn't matter how the dreams started--they always turned into a plan.

As he drowsed through unrealistic plans, pincers clattering and slang-accented mutters filling his quarters, it opened eyes of pinkish-red and made real plans. Plans that worked. Plans that would stand up against the waking world.

The king cobra arched over his back, hissing under its breath and studying the body it attached to. Scorpions didn't have snakes for tails, and snakes didn't typically have scorpions to think for them. Yet here they were, scorpion and snake, fuzed at the ends like the freak of nature they were. The snake writhed, testing its length as it climbed up the wall behind them and dipped down to coil on the floor. It didn't really have the length to rest like that; restless, it glided over its fellow freak's pinchers and turned back on itself. It hung there, uncomfortable by nature but comfortable by unnatural build. It watched the sleeping scorpion and plotted.

For every dim, victorious dream Quickstrike imagined, it constructed the last plan that would actually work. It noted rocks to shelter behind and places to run. It found safety in the midst of battle and angles to shoot from. It tempered the scorpion's anger with caution and the scurrying with arrogance. Quickstrike wondered sometimes about where his arrogance and violence came, but the snake knew. Scorpions were aggressive but essentially lurk-and-strike predators. The cobra had more dignity. In fact, the cobra possessed a king's pride along with his ferocity when he went to war--or, in this cobra's case, on the hunt.

Scorpions hunted weaker things, insects and tiny animals. They relied on poison and its strength.

The king cobra hunted other snakes.

Poison, yes, and strength, but the cobra hissed plans of strategy and exploration into Quickstrike's audios late at night. New paths through the underbrush instead of a desert burrow, and it tasted the scent of prey on the ground and air as it searched for whom to chase down. Coils crushed the life out of its next meal, but also held it helpless until the poison kicked in. Scorpions ran at the signs of overwhelming danger, but the cobra stayed its ground. Other snakes would pursue the weak.

The cobra _understood _the Beast Wars. Warfare equaled the hunt to it. The Maximals, even some of the other Predacons, were weaker snakes. Some of them were stronger, but kings knew no fear. This hunt was to kill or be killed. A pity that the snake remained the less-connected instinct in the fuzor, subjected to the scorpion's impulses and confusion in the midst of playing the part of a warrior king. Quickstrike's mind, such as it was, had a better connection to the larger body. They could communicate, after a sort, but the best time to reach the mechanical brain was when the barrier's fell and reality drifted away into subconscious desires.

So while the scorpion dreamed of vague campaigns that brushed over warfare with scurrying and hiding, the king cobra carefully plotted out the final version for survival and domination.

And hissed into Quickstrike's thoughts one hundred different plans.

.

* * *

.

* * *

_Have I mentioned that I like Quickstrike as a muse? His snake-hand assaulted me at about 4 AM, insisting that I write about it RIGHT NOW. I didn't. But that doesn't mean I wasn't seriously intimidated by its attitude. Do not piss off The King._

_...I had dreams of a cobra in an Elvis outfit that night. It wasn't pretty._

_Anyway, another ficlet continuing with Quickstrike's violence. Also, I don't think I've ever seen a fanfic done about Quickstrike's snake half. I mean, Megatron talks to HIS head-hand, but it seems like Quickstrike actually communicates with his. Remember the episode where it was detached and went looking for him?_


	31. Loss of the Faithful

**Loss of the Faithful**

* * *

It annoyed Megatron, in retrospect, that he had been wrong.

The Golden Disks rotated slowly before him, held suspended in columns of light that both protected and displayed them. One Disk had guided him here on his quest to conquer Cybertron, spreading the Predacons' glory wherever he went and becoming the tyrant he could only dream of equaling. A descendant of the Decepticons fulfilling the original Megatron's desire; it was something he had barely dared wish during his time on Cybertron. He had studied the silver Decepticon, or at least what information was available about him, but he hadn't risked an open devotion to the dead leader. That would have attracted too much attention to him. The Maximal High Council's security forces had apparently decided that his assumption of the ancient Cybertronian's name was a tribute to history, not a dedication to a dream. More fools they to let him continue his clandestine studying of his namesake. Of course, if he had been able to do it openly, the entire unpleasant episode with Starscream wouldn't have happened. Some things were only available for viewing in supervised locations, however well-concealed those doing the watching were. The guards had been much more blatant around the Golden Disk. Those idiots on the High Council refused to see what was right in front of their faces! A precious artifact from the past? Ha! It was a precious artifact for the present, and he had been the other one with the brains to grab the chance for the Predacons' future.

That future had changed. This other Golden Disk had made sure of that. Where once he had seen himself on the throne of power, now he saw himself as one cog in the wheel of time. He could break or bend, and the wheel would keep going. Or...he could lean back, jam up the works, and hopefully open up a new possibility in the direction of the turning. Always before he had dreamed, strong dreams, about and for himself. It was the Predacon way, was it not? Self-centered, arrogant, and as self-sufficient as he was capable, the ideal Predacon would backstab anyone for the smallest advantage.

But in the last few months, Megatron had realized that he was not the ideal Predacon. Somewhere between the awkward silences that used to be companionable and the hidden surveillance cameras, he had looked into optics that reflected what he really was, and that mirrored 'bot wasn't who he had wanted to be. He had seen how he'd fallen short; this Golden Disk showed him why. It wasn't his fate to rule Cybertron. It wasn't his fate to be remembered as the greatest. It was his fate--no, his destiny, that goal he could strive to reach for--that he was only a cog in the wheel, but he was a cog that would rewind the wheel and set it on a different path.

Now, standing here looking at the Golden Disks that had led him across time and space on a mission to change both, it annoyed him that he had been wrong. He had labeled the mirror a traitor for reflecting what he didn't want to see, but in the end he couldn't help but understand that the reflection had been true.

Too late, he wished Scorpinok could see him believing in a greater dream.

* * *

.

* * *

_What did Megatron's loyal follower think of his change of plans? They'll never know._


	32. Honor Guard

**Honor Guard**

* * *

The twilight air split with the shriek of combat, the mortal and immortal clashing on a lonely beach lit dimly by the setting sun.

Depth Charge screamed as the missile exploded, throwing him into a boulder. The scream cut off with a sickening ::crack!:: of metal breaking against rock, and the limp ray-bot slid down into the sand of the beach. His optics flickered erratically for a few moments more, and the last bits of his consciousness fuzzily noted the feet sinking into the sand near his head before darkness swept him away.

Rampage looked down at his fallen foe, missile launcher dangling idly from his hand as he prodded the manta ray carefully. There was no reaction to his action, however, and he sighed. Looked like the fun was over for the day.

He glanced around the darkening beach, the newest setting for an old custom. Who knew what could come along and harass his playmate in the dark of the night, after all? This 'bot was Rampage's toy. He didn't share, and he wouldn't take the risk of something else breaking irreparably what he'd only cracked. None of the other Predacons would approach him while the crab stayed, but the Maximals probably didn't know to come and get him if he left the ray alone. No, there was only one thing to be done, just like he'd done dozens of times before on different worlds at different times. Sometimes he wondered what the ray thought of his survival of these times. Did he think that he'd driven the killer away, leaving him safe to recuperate? He knew so little of the true game.

The sand creaked as the Transmetal crab settled on the sand next to his hunter, his missile launcher laid in his lap as he looked down at Depth Charge. Almost tenderly, almost like he didn't know what he was doing, one curled finger stroked down the Maximal's fluid-stained face before returning to rest in the sand. With a patience few had ever witnessed, Rampage sat beside his old friend.

Guarding him through the night.

* * *

.

* * *

_Rampage is immortal; Depth Charge is not. You'd think that would have been an advantage in their fights, no? So why exactly is Depth Charge still alive?_


	33. Playing Nice

**Playing Nice**

* * *

He frowned at the things in his hands. They fuzzed around the edges when he moved, but that was because they were holograms, not real cards. Not that he'd ever held real cards to compare them to, but he found them to be disturbingly transparent. He still found it hard to believe that the 'bot sitting opposite of him couldn't see the faces of the cards as well as he could. Sometimes, the subtleties of technology completely passed him by.

"Are ya gonna stare at 'em all day, or ya gonna play?" His opponent lounged in a chair, studying his own cards intently. The fuzor's lack of hands made holding them difficult, but he enjoyed the game too much to let that faze him. Feet up on the table and confidence written in every line of his body, Quickstrike prompted his fellow player impatiently. "Mah shift's over soon."

"So? I've never known that to make a difference in when you play," Rampage snorted. Then he sighed and laid his cards down flat, pointing at two of them. "I was merely wondering if these were supposed to be identical."

"Slaggit!"

The crab watched, unaccountably amused, as Quickstrike proceeded to lose his temper. This was a common occurrence, but today the fuzor's ire was directed entirely toward someone not in the room, or even in the base. Tarantulas hadn't even been SEEN for days, much less heard from. Now strangely-accented curses were being directed toward the spider and his meddling ways, which had resulted in half the systems in the Predacon base's computer spontaneously developing program errors. Megatron's list of invectives had been far more creative than Quickstrike's, but as the fuzor bent over the computer and began painstakingly searching for the corrupt data on his favorite card game, Rampage couldn't decide who hated the spider more.

The crab didn't care what the spider had done, really. He leaned back in his chair and watched the fuzor work. Quickstrike didn't seem to notice that his life was in peril just by being in the same room as the base's resident psychopath, but that might have been because he thought Megatron had Rampage under control. Or maybe living around Inferno, yet another base psycho, had immunized him to the danger. Or maybe, and Rampage thought this the most likely reason, Quickstrike wasn't capable of holding onto fear. No matter what Rampage was like on the battlefield or how many times the crab threatened to maim him, a moment later the cowboy 'bot was hitching a ride on his tank mode, as enthusiastically trying to kill Maximals as ever. Fear happened, and then it disappeared as if it had never been. Everyone in the base knew that only the spark-box stood between Rampage and their destruction, but still Quickstrike persisted in treating him like…like a drinking buddy, or something.

It bemused Rampage. He couldn't figure the slagging fuzor's mind out, and as annoying as he often found the 'bot, he couldn't argue that Quickstrike was probably the only one on the planet who could get away with slapping him on the back without losing an arm. Depth Charge at least knew enough to be wary around him, even if the raybot didn't fear him anymore. Quickstrike was afraid of him for about three seconds at a time, if that. It was weird. Rampage had never met someone who responded to a threat with an invitation to play cards. He hadn't known how to deal with it when he'd first met the fuzor, but he was used to it by now. It was even kind of…nice.

So he watched Quickstrike turn back to the table, planning out how he'd kill the fuzor when he had the chance. Megatron couldn't keep him enslaved forever, after all, and he would kill again.

In the meantime, they'd play cards.

.

* * *

.

* * *

_I wanted to take a look at how Quickstrike deals with the crab. He never seems to show any lasting fear toward him, does he? And they seem to fight well together. Er...as well as any Predacons do, anyway. And if Quickstrike tries to pal around with everybody, then how does Rampage deal with it? I keep getting this picture of Rampage looking completely taken aback as he's dragged around like a reluctant puppy by Quickstrike, who wants to play cards._

_"But...But...I'm a killer!"_

_"Cool. Let's play cards."_


	34. Traditions

**Traditions**

* * *

The battle had been harsh, the aftermath even harsher. Depth Charge laid on his back, staring up at the stars as he waited as he often did for his self-repair systems to get to work. His internal computer had been annoying him with error messages since he'd limped away from the latest clash with X, so he'd just turned it off. It made him more vulnerable, but at the moment he didn't care. Looking up at the stars, his uninjured arm tucked under his head in as comfortable a position as he could reach, he felt--strangely, he knew distantly, but he wasn't going to worry about it--at peace with the universe. Let it come. For now he was laying on a cliff, far away from the base full of annoying Maximals, and all was as right as it was going to get in his world. Rampage, as far as he knew, had retreated to lick his own wounds and heal.

Sometimes he envied X his ability to heal. It would cut down considerably on these recuperation times between fights. Sometimes, though, he knew that these times were the only ones that he knew he DIDN'T have to be chasing the immortal monster. This was the only time when he didn't feel the pressure to chase X down, because he already had. This was his time without guilt, rare as it was.

So it was at this time, vulnerable and at peace, that he rested. Optics gradually dimming, the stars becoming fainter and fainter, Depth Charge felt his body hum and grumble, repairing itself. He really should have been more alert. With his radar off, who knew what could happen.

Who knew...

The footsteps were the first he knew of his visitor. The sun had been lighting the sky in front of the cliff he lay on, and he'd shut his optics off with the lazy intention of later opening them when the sun was above the horizon. Sunrise wasn't exactly his time of the day, anyway. It was better to begin the hunt at twilight, when the darkness would hide his stirring. But he'd enjoyed the slow building warmth of the light on his body, so much so that he had let down his guard. The footsteps took him by surprise, but by then he knew it was too late to get away. His body was still too injured to allow him flight. The best he could do was try to take the intruder by ambush, acting like he was unaware and suckering him close.

Keeping himself relaxed as those heavy footsteps approached was one of the hardest things he'd ever done, however. They were steady, confident, but not in any sort of hurry. They wandered, actually, as if their owner were looking for something on the cliff top. When it was found, any doubt Depth Charge had harbored at the identity of his visitor was banished as a sigh broke the still, predawn air. The slight limp had given it away, but it could have--just possibly--been Optimus Primal who'd found him. He recognized the sigh, though. The crab was still injured enough to limp, hmm? What the slag was he chasing down the ray for, then?

The sigh became a series of disgruntled mutters and the sound of metal on bare earth, like...Rampage was sitting down. Still pretending to be offline, Depth Charge strained his hearing, wondering if this really was the crab. No attack, no snide remark; just another sigh, and silence. He waited for a few more minutes, but nothing happened. Puzzled, he activated his internal computer and stifled the immediate deluge of error messages. Yes, he knew he was damaged. Yes, yes, yes. Just confirm the closest spark signature, slaggit!

X, just as he'd thought. Now, what the slag was he up to? He seemed to be waiting for something, but what? Maybe he wanted Depth Charge to make the first move. But that was different than his usual behavior! He didn't know the manta ray was there? Oh, please. He wasn't more than a hundred feet away. He wasn't in a mood to fight? Then why bother tracking him down in the first place? Depth Charge didn't really want to fight; not right now, not while he was still messed up from a few hours ago. This was his time to relax without guilt. He'd earned this.

The crab was just SITTING there. What was he doing?

Curiosity and paranoia got the better of him, and Depth Charge's optics lit dimly. The blurry form to his right could barely be seen without turning his head, but it appeared that Rampage was--was--

--watching the sun rise.

Baffled, Depth Charge let his optics light a little bit more. It still looked like the crab was staring at the horizon, missile launcher laid to one side and his arms folded on top of his knees. A more blatant contrast to the psychotic robot the ray had faced in combat only hours ago could not be thought of. It could, of course, be a trick. The crab could be biding his time, waiting for the ray to react somehow. He was probably just waiting to burst out laughing at his "old friend's" confusion.

Well, so be it. Depth Charge turned his head toward him and stared openly.

It took a couple moments for Rampage to notice, and the Maximal tensed when he did, emerald optics looking with his.

Rampage only nodded. Without a word, he climbed slowly onto his feet, not appearing to notice the ray's tension, and walked away.

Depth Charge gazed after him long after he was out of sight, his radar tracking the crab's progress. An error message blinked, telling him there was something wrong with his internal workings. At that moment, he couldn't agree more.

.

* * *

.

* * *

_Depth Charge's after-battle tradition finally meets Rampage's. Drama, fortunately, is still knocked out from the battle, or something might have actually happened._


	35. Ours?

**Ours?**

* * *

The first fight ended, as these things always did, in paperwork. Terrorsaur couldn't say that he was surprised. The complete lack of surprise even damped the anger that had started the fight, and the shock of suddenly being buried in paper forms up to his neck certainly stopped him from punching Airazor again.

"Actually, I'd be more surprised if this hadn't happened," he said somewhat ruefully to her as he dug his way out. "If I have time to be irritated by you, they must be certain I have time to fill out another shuttle-load of worthless forms."

She'd offered to help, in that mockingly sweet manner Maximals usually did, and he responded in form-trained shorthand with a series of numbers, letters, and department categorizations. It took her two hours and forty minutes to track down the correct paper form--helpfully provided, out of order of course, with the rest of the slag dumped on the red Predacon--and figure out he'd referred her to a particularly messy way of dying. It took him another twenty minutes of her giggling at him to understand that he hadn't even realized he hadn't told her to go stuff a missile up her intake directly. Slag. Now he even THOUGHT in filing systems.

Oh, well. At least he didn't have to actually see the bureaucrats screwing with his afterlife now. Although he did envy Airazor her lack of annoying superiors. And not being dead. Yeah. He definitely envied that little fact.

"How exactly," he asked as they sat on opposite shoulders and watched Waspinator be bored on monitor duty, "do they decide when you've, er…moved on from being 'not dead'?" He wanted to ask where Tigatron was in the Matrix's grand scheme of making his afterlife miserable--that was the theory, anyway, as he couldn't think of any reason the Pit would have assigned him to work with one of the good guys--but didn't ask for fear of actually being told. The events of the two Maximals' non-death were weird enough. The current events in the Beast Wars were enough to make him wonder if it were possible to have scrambled neurocircuitry when dead, and he had the feeling that talking about Tigatron would only make things worse.

Airazor stopped poking Waspinator's left temple and leaned around the wasp's face to look at her counterpart. "I guess we'll be resurrected. Or whatever is holding us back will stop?" She reached for one of the piles of paper Terrorsaur had impaled on Waspinator's antenna (it kept them in order, sort of) and began paging through it. "You know, I don't think they included a form for resurrection in here…"

"Don't say that!" he hissed desperately, glancing around in justified paranoia as if Pit bureaucrats were lurking behind the monitors waiting for an excuse to make up more 'just in case we'll need this in your file at some point in eternity' paperwork to fling at him. It wasn't paranoia if they were really out to get him. Ye holy office furniture, but he'd developed a lovely twitch-and-flinch routine after the LAST time he'd thoughtlessly mentioned that there wasn't a form in the pile for dying in the past, on Earth, but in an alternate dimension. That had left him mired in filthy organic-pulp sheets for a solid week, and his hands STILL hurt from filling them out.

Airazor had laughed at him, much like she was now. But if he attacked her, he reminded himself for the umpteenth zillionth time, he'd have six reems of "Cause of Conflict" and "Justification of Force" forms to slog through and send back to the Office of Mortal Interactions, who would then complain and send them back because they hated his handwriting. Or just that he existed. That was probably more likely. Even Airazor had said his handwriting was passable, and the Maximal had every reason to dislike him. That whole Good Conscience/Bad Conscience fight, and all. And the fact that they were still from opposite factions, opposite afterlives, and opposite personalities.

Despite all that, they got on surprisingly well. Airazor theorized it was because they were both flyers, high-strung and competitive, but ultimately willing to work together because they disliked Megatron. Terrorsaur took the more realistic approach of, hey, he wasn't burning in the Pit, he wasn't dealing with endless lines and bureaucrats, and it was hard to really get worked up about a fight over somebody like Waspinator. Comparatively, this was a pretty good deal for a dead Predacon. It helped that Waspinator listened him screeching orders of mayhem in his audios a lot more frequently than he listened to Airazor's impassioned but rather repetitive pleas to give up a life of crime and join the Maximals. Honestly, he hoped Dinobot hadn't switched sides because of somebody like Airazor. It was really kind of embarrassing to think that Dinobot betrayed Megatron because of the lamest attempt at persuasion he'd ever had to listen to.

Not that the Predacons were all that great lately. Terrorsaur often couldn't believe that Waspinator considered the stuff that happened to be normal, but then, he hadn't been living in the Beast Wars since he'd died. Death put the kibosh on tolerating the strangeness of the living. "Primus, WHAT is THAT?!" he'd screamed the first day on the job, and Airazor had fallen off Waspinator's head and nearly inhaled Form #41.B15 as she laughed uncontrollably at his expression.

"That's Quickstrike," she managed to gasp out after removing pieces of paper from the back of her throat. "He's a fuzor."

He'd sputtered for a moment after that, trying to connect the obviously new word with the mix-mash of scorpion and snake swaggering around the room where Waspinator had reported for duty. "He has a head for a hand. Oh, slag, he's TALKING to the head-hand. It's another Megatron! Does he have the same 'yes/no' speech defect? No, no, he obviously has a new and sparklingly defective speech pattern. I can't understand a word he's blathering. Who programmed him, Tarantulas on a bender during a firefight? You'd think someone would have noticed that someone who talks to a body part isn't going very far in life. Oh, Matrix, shoot me now! He's flirting with Blackarachnia. The guy has a death wish, and it's not going to be a pretty way to go. Waspinator, make sure you set up cameras to catch his imminent demise in all its messy detail. What IS it with Megatron and recruiting anyone who wanders onto the ship?" He blinked as that last sentence came out and directed a narrow-eyed glare at Airazor's mirthful expression. "DON'T say a WORD."

She didn't, but only because she couldn't get any out around the grin splitting her face. Terrorsaur would have done more than sulk at her, but right then Megatron breezed into the room in all his shining, Transmetal glory. "ARGH. There is no justice in the universe. I die, and lumbering oafs take to the sky. I think there's some kind of saying involving rotund, pinkish mammals and feathered appendages that applies here." There was a sound like paperwork getting sucked into a jet engine on Waspinator's other shoulder, and Terrorsaur stared woefully as Megatron rollerskated around the room. "A land-bound dinosaur with a jet pack, who rolls around on silly little skates. The Predacon faction has no dignity left. I took it with me into the afterlife. Yes, that's the only answer to this situation."

Ignoring, of course, Airazor's assertion that the Predacons never had any dignity. Her non-death had obviously deranged her, the poor 'bot. So delicate, these Maximals. The fact that she'd taken to quoting, in a credibly recognizable squawk, his past attempts at saving his own traitorous aft from Megatron's wrath was beside the point. Now that he couldn't get pummeled by anyone but the dead--or not-quite dead--Terrorsaur had all the courage he needed to face wrath, Maximals, or Blackarachnia on a bad day. He cheered on any decision that would lead to entertainment. Being the Bad Conscience was an excellent job!

"You're a horrible, horrible person," Airazor said disapprovingly as Waspinator, once again, ended up in the CR Tank for missing his shift.

"Yes, yes I am." Terrorsaur smirked and folded his arms. "It's not my fault you're as convincing as a cleaning drone. 'Oh no, don't play cards with Quickstrike, Waspy!'" he mimicked in a high falsetto. He refused to admit this was absurd, being that Airazor's voice was often deeper than his own. "'Don't enjoy yourself while you're still alive or anything! Who knows, you may be Maximal enough to NOT DIE when you're supposed to.'"

She glared at him for that. "Touché."

He grinned back. After weeks of bickering back and forth, teasing the Maximal about her not-death had taken the sting out of his own death. He'd never imagined death as a bureaucracy, and he'd certainly never imagined the afterlife as a never-ending verbal fight over Waspinator, but all considered? This wasn't bad. Airazor had even taken a few swings of her own at him and apparently been ashamed of herself for starting the fights. At least, he'd never seen any paperwork or authority figure, so he assumed she guilted herself into apologizing on that one. Terrorsaur got stuck with describing his beast mode in six words or less on eighty thousand forms just for trying to shoot the goodie-goodie's slagging wing off. He really couldn't figure out why it mattered if the dead tried to kill each other, anyway, even if one of them wasn't quite dead yet.

It was probably something to do with the only the nice 'bots returning to the Matrix. Ugh. The Matrix could let them police their inner goodness themselves. The Pit stuck people like him with paperwork. He wondered if that made the inhabitants of the Pit higher maintenance than the Matrix. A barrage of strict rules, constant supervision, and forms describing every moment NOT under a superior's watch…what did the Matrix have?

"Like the best day of your life, every day, except even better," the Maximal answered promptly when he finally broke down and asked her what it was like.

Terrrorsaur eyed her askance. The best day of his life had been when he'd sabotaged his biggest rival's engines and sent him crashing sixty stories down into a group of surly menial workers back on Cybertron. While that had been great, he just couldn't forsee an eternity of that. Huh. Maybe that's why he hadn't gone to the Matrix. He decided not to ask anymore questions about what the Matrix was like. It seemed far more depressing than it was worth. Not that he wanted to go there, of course! He was Terrorsaur, evil Predacon! Evil Predacons went to the Pit. They didn't even WANT to go to the Matrix!

Well…

Maybe a little bit.

…sometimes.

"Poor Predacon," Airazor said as he sulked against the side of Waspinator's head. She reached down from her perch on the wasp's antenna and patted him on the top of his head affectionately. "Poor, lost spark."

"I have no idea," he gritted out, "what you're talking about." But he didn't pull away from the hand she left on his shoulder. It was just a stupid, empty gesture, he told himself. Typical Maximal gesture. She didn't mean it anymore than he needed it. She had no idea what it was like to just be starting an eternity in the Pit, and he wouldn't accept sympathy at all, much less from HER.

Fortunately, a distraction entered the room right then that prevented him from blowing up at her (and being buried in more penalty forms) just to regain some of his nonexistent dignity. Rampage gave them a thoroughly unnerved look while Waspinator's back was turned, but his expression turned to his more customary snarl when the wasp turned. "The tyrant bellowed?" the crab sneered.

Waspinator cringed. He wished Megatron would stop assigning him this. Sometimes he was really tempted to do what that tiny voice in his head urged and skip duty for the day. "Wazzpinator and crab-bot have patrol," he said weakly, and something like a cornered animal flashed in the immortal's emerald optics.

Terrorsaur and Airazor leaned forward to give Rampage identical, sweet smiles. The pterodactyl spoke in a friendly tone directly into the wasp's right audio, since he was conveniently next to it already. "Hey, Waspinator, what's the rush? Offer the 'bot a seat!"

"Patrol hazz not zztarted. Crab-bot zzit down?" Waspinator seemed terrified, but anyone watching would have thought him strangely, if foolishly, brave to offer the psychopath a seat.

On the same note, an observer would have found the crab's usual life-threatening scowl to clash with his behavior. Instead of looming over the wasp as he did with the other Predacons, Rampage stood as far away from him as the room allowed and glared at him from a distance. "NO." An observer might have also noticed the odd way Rampage's optics tracked the air over Waspinator's shoulders. Almost as if he saw something nobody else did. "Let's get this over with. You fly, and make sure you stay FAR above me. Or I'll crush you to a paste," he added, but a careful listener would have heard something in his voice. A bit desperate, perhaps?

"I don't think he likes us," Airazor pouted to Terrorsaur.

"That's okay. We'll be REALLY NICE to him when Waspinator's in the CR Tank today." The red Predacon smiled and smiled. "As I'm sure he will be. He's yet to get through a patrol with you intact, has he, 'crab-bot'?"

A very careful observer would have seen how Rampage disgusted expression covered a quick retreat from the room. The two ghostly sparks on Waspinator's shoulders did so observe, and laughed long and loudly at his retreating back. Waspinator, oblivious to such byplay, reluctantly trudged after his patrol partner, knowing only that Rampage tended to explode into rage around him for reasons unknown. He didn't know what it was about him, but the wasp could already predict that no matter how far above or behind he flew on this patrol, he'd spend time in the CR Tank recovering. He didn't think today would be any different.

Sure enough, not even halfway around the circuit of the base, a rousing rendition of 'Three Million Cubes of Energon on the Wall' as sung by Terrorsaur sent a missile speeding toward the unfortunate wasp. "Why doezz univerzze hate Wazzpinator?" Waspinator sighed right before it blew him apart.

And two freelance consciences turned Rampage into a twitchy paranoid for the rest of the day.

* * *

Later, much later, the hawk asked the pterodactyl, "Better than fighting?"

"Better than paperwork," he said back.

She couldn't say she was surprised.

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* * *

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* * *

_This was going to be longer, but I decided this would be another trilogy of ficlets. Terrorsaur amuses me immensely, and I like the bureaucratic version of the afterlife. Rampage being able to see the dead was just a whim, but the thought of him having to deal with visible "voices in your head" was too good to pass up. Nobody else can see them, but he can't get rid of them..._


	36. Typical

**Typical**

* * *

Some days, Depth Charge felt like his life had been tossed in a blender on 'high.' Usually it happened because he'd been in a fight of some kind where he'd gotten the slag beat out of him. Then, of course, were the times Rampage decided to mess with his head. Those were the worst times. Physical damage was painful, sure, but a trip to a CR Chamber would fix him up again. When X did something that threw him off, it twisted his mind into a pretzel that wouldn't go away until he unknotted it.

He decided, as he landed outside the Maximal base's blast doors, that he was going to take a few days off. Hang around the base, annoy Primal, gripe with Rattrap; whatever it took to make his poor abused mind stop spinning. A quick glance up at the gun outpost revealed no one watching, and he gave serious consideration to using the moment of privacy to whimper quietly. Instead, he put a hand to his head and sighed. Life just wasn't fair. All he wanted was a little justice. Did that slagging crab have to make him question that simple goal?

Grimacing at his own thoughts, he dragged the blast doors open enough to slip through—and promptly tripped over Blackarachnia and Silverbolt. The couple barely noticed as he landed flat on his face. If he hadn't just had the breath knocked out of him, he would have interrupted their make-out session with a few choice words that—if there was any justice at ALL in the universe—would have caused their spontaneous combustion. Fortunately for the pair, before he could interrupt them he happened to take a look around. The sight left him dumbfounded:

Cheetor was walking in one of the lava pools.

No, correction: Cheetor was walking ON the lava pool, head down to study in apparent fascination the way his paws weren't sinking into the molten rock. Primal stood by at the edge of the pool, saying something in a low voice to Rhinox, who was pointing a remote control or something of that nature at Cheetor. Neither of them seemed surprised by Cheetor's sudden ability to defy death. As the stunned raybot watched, however, the cat's twitching ears caught fire. Before he even had time to notice it, a spray of water drenched him. He yowled angrily at the other side of the pool, where Rattrap stood holding a…was that a hose?! Rhinox had to raise his voice to be heard above the resulting argument between cat and rat.

"I didn't think to compensate for heat."

Depth Charge decided, quite calmly, that he didn't want to know what was going on. In fact, he was going to turn around and find some place very far away in order to stay ignorant. Yes, that sounded like a good plan.

He turned to go—and tripped again. This time the fuzor gave him an apologetic look before Blackarachnia pulled him back into an enthusiastic liplock.

Some days…

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* * *

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* * *

_Poor Depth Charge. He really just doesn't fit in with the rest of the Maximals' looniness sometimes, and Rampage is out to make anytime he's NOT in the base pure misery._


	37. To Truly Live

**To Truly Live**

* * *

Inferno sat ramrod-straight, alone in his quarters, lights off, waiting for his Queen to summon him. To anyone watching, he had no purpose in life other than what Megatron willed, and he knew that they were right. The other Predacons thought he was insane to follow the tyrant so blindly, but he knew he had the choice. He could fight the faulty programming if he really wanted to, or choose a new Queen like a mutinous drone seeking a colony more powerful than the last.

Oh, yes, he knew that it was his programming that made him this way. No matter how confused the animal, he was a creature of metals and complex intelligence. There was more under the veneer of ant soldier than the other robots guessed. It had taken him weeks of thought to decide that it was best this way, no matter what the Predacons or Maximals thought of his decision. He couldn't find it in himself to care, once he'd made up his mind. The only one whose opinion mattered was Megatron, and Megatron set an example by not giving a slag if he was feared, loved, or loathed. With that precedent, it wasn't hard to ignore the others.

It did make it rather lonely at times, though.

Inferno pulled out one of his flamethrowers, thinking to clean it and make sure it was in good condition for any emergency that might come up. That was a soldier's job--to always be ready for battle--and he was, above all, a soldier. His posture didn't relax as he eyed the gun critically, and that, too, was a soldier's life. No slouching, no slacking off; only a stiff retirement into a drawer somewhere like any other tool, ready to be pulled out at any moment by the hand that wielded him. He had no initiative and little desire to lead others except at the will of his Queen. That was his lot in life, to always follow.

The pilot light of his flamethrower cast a small globe of pale light in the dark room, and at the very edge of it came the miniscule disturbance of tiny wings. He dug out a chunk of dirt left over from some fight and watched the moth waver in and out of the light. Outside of the lit area, he couldn't see it, and, in not seeing it, he had to wonder if it existed at all. After all, he couldn't see it, couldn't hear it, and wouldn't have ever known it was there if it hadn't ventured into the light. Could anyone really say that there was a moth at all if there wasn't proof of its presence? Inside the light, there were flashes of patterned brown and gray, but there was nothing when he moved the flame.

He found another smear of grease to clean away, most of his attention on the gun but enough left over to note that the moth had come seeking the light again. This time it floated nearer, circling the edges of the glow but spiraling closer as if drawn by the heat. Such a delicate thing, a construct of dust and air exploring the boundaries of danger as it drifted toward the source of light.

It would die if it didn't turn back, he knew. It was not meant to dance with the fire. Some things, like metal guns, were meant to feed the flames from a source locked away from outsiders, like the napalm reservoir dripping slowly into the spout for the pilot light, keeping it bright. Like his gun, these things were only channels, turning the raw material into fire. Megatron was like his flamethrower. Megatron held the potential for a dream, a burning passion that would torch anyone else. The Predacon tyrant fed the power of that dream into a brilliant beacon, and into that light came Inferno. Outside of the sphere of light generated by his Queen, he didn't exist. He was one of the many 'bots that existed, but he knew the truth: he was not a dreamer.

There were some who could dream, who held the mad genius of talent, charisma, or tyranny, but they were few and far between. Everyone else could aspire to those visionaries, or hate them. To try and imitate them would be stupidity, because it would be like trying to capture fire in pictures of paint: the fire would seem to burn, but it would be a brief, weak illusion that had nothing of real strength. To hate them would be to stand against them, and while it could be done, the opposition would only make the light flare brighter, a gush of flame all the stronger for their defiance.

But there was another way, for those who knew and acknowledged the bitter truth of their lack of ability. Outside of the light, Inferno couldn't see the moth, and he was like the moth. If one couldn't be the channel for the fire, then he would at least exist in service to it. The universe was seen in pinpoints of stars, lives of people who made a difference in one way or another. The Maximals hated Megatron, and the other Predacons aspired to him. Only Inferno circled the flame diligently, not caring about whether the flamethrower was "right" or "wrong." The other Predacons were pale shadows to Megatron's glory, and Inferno was proud to be a moth flying in the corona of illumination his Queen carried everywhere. As for the Maximals…

He pulled the trigger on his flamethrower, and a roaring gout of fire burst up to hit the ceiling. He knew that if he held the trigger down, the metal of the gun would eventually melt. Before that, the ceiling would collapse. Provoked to fiery, towering rage, his Queen would destroy those who opposed him, and be destroyed. That was the way of dreamers, to burn out in the passion of their visions. An immolation of life and daring to live it, and what of him, the follower? He loved the flames, a pyromaniac rejoicing in the heat and danger of daring to walk out of the darkness and intrude on the light, but to be consumed by them? What point did it serve other than his own death? Was existence worth the pain of burning up in Megatron fire?

The trigger released, and Inferno cast a glance around for his fellow light-worshipper. He found it plummeting to the floor, wings like burnt paper, tiny torches streaming a miniature globe of fading light. The moth hit a dot of grease he'd cleaned out earlier, and the last feeble waving of the crackling wings lit an inferno of its own. It was small, almost easy to miss or put out, and it ran out of fuel quickly. Even as he watched the last spark die, a bellowing voice summoned him to circle in the light of his Queen, and he hurried to obey.

That was all they were, moths to a beautiful flame, a tool to spread the light. They were fuel for others' fire, pulled in and infected by a vision they might be lucky enough to spread. It gave them purpose. It brought them out of the darkness and assured them that they existed. It would kill them, in the end, but that was a small price to pay for following greatness. For really existing.

The moth had blazed such with glorious radiance.

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* * *

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* * *

_You don't expect him to have reasons behind his behavior. A berserker, maybe, but one with a cause._

_Optimus Primal died for his cause, but you don't see anyone calling him a fanatic, do you? Or Dinobot. Why is it that Dinobot's obsession with his honor is admired, but Inferno's dedication to Megatron is discarded so callously? His loyalty is an amazing thing, programming or not, no matter if you think Megatron is nuts._


	38. Maximal Ethics

**Maximal Ethics**

* * *

He was a rogue. He was a rebel. He was everything Optimus Primal detested in a Maximal, but then, he didn't like Primal's kind much, either. They mutually despised the other's traits, the other's way of living...but they didn't deny that they were Maximals. They each disapproved of the kind of Maximal the other 'bot was, but they didn't try and say that their way was best. Maximals were like that; diversity was encouraged, because not everyone could be alike. That would be courting stagnation, and that brought down empires. The Maximals had to be prepared for change in any form, and what better way to anticipate something than having someone in the faction who knew how to deal with it when it came up?

Take Primal, for example. When Megatron tried to kill Optimus Prime and change the future, Primal DEALT with it. Depth Charge might only grudgingly admit it--to himself, and even then far away from the Maximal base so no one would accidentally overhear him--but he would have had no idea where to START in that situation. He probably would have given up in despair. It wasn't that he was a coward; he just hadn't had any experience with temporal distortion and a megalomaniac whose plans made his head spin. This Predacon was seriously nuts, in Depth Charge's opinion, but nuts in a dangerously successful kind of way. Let Primal handle the tyrant. That's the kind of Maximal the ape was.

In this situation, however, Primal was NOT the right Maximal for the job. He was going to try negotiating with Megatron, and Depth Charge knew that wasn't the way to go about it. Rampage was barely controlled by the dinosaur to begin with, and adding a hostage to the mix was a recipe for a quick, violent, and probably fatal final product. Megatron had--wisely, for once--apparently left the crab to his own devices, which meant that the tyrant was watching closely and waiting for the choicest opportunity to exploit, but not interfering in Rampage's fun.

Which was why negotiating with Megatron wasn't an option. Megatron wasn't the one in control, no matter how the Predacon saurian deluded himself. Like all hostage situations, the one in control was the one with the hostage in his hands. Even if Megatron ordered Rampage to let Cheetor go, Depth Charge knew that the crab would kill Cheetor. All the torture to his spark wouldn't stop one twitch on the trigger of a rocket launcher, and the same would hold true if the Maximals tried to attack, openly or stealthily. The crab had the power, now, and they all knew it. The Predacons only cared about using the situation to the best of their advantage. The Maximals wanted Cheetor out of there. Rampage was doing who-knew-what to the poor cat, with no sign of caring what Megatron OR Optimus said while he did…whatever…in the cave he'd holed himself up in. One quick strike at the flying cheetah had given him a Maximal to play with, and he had every intention of enjoying himself.

Unfortunately, Depth Charge had a pretty good idea of what Rampage did for fun. When the other Maximals looked at him with questions in their optics, he looked away and changed the subject. Primal thought he was making progress, but the raybot knew Megatron was only bluffing his control. That left him alone as the expert on the psychopath holding Cheetor's life at gunpoint, trying to advise the Maximal leader on what to do, and the only advice he could give made the others turn away in hurt betrayal. It was the only sensible answer, and he hated it, but he gave it anyway:

Give up. The cat wasn't getting out alive. Protoform X wouldn't let him out of his grasp, not after so long without killing or any sort of freedom. Give up hope, and move on.

Shame, wasn't it, that the cat was so young. Able to find laughter, even in the middle of a war for the future, and Depth Charge could feel those accusing optics on his back as he walked from the Ark's command center, reminding him that everyone in that room couldn't give up on the bright young soldier. Silverbolt had seemed more like a wounded puppy than a warrior, and Rhinox had coldly turned his back. Even Blackarachnia, Predacon to the spark, snorted delicately and muttered something about abandoning someone to Rampage being heartless. Rattrap cussed him out, and Primal…it was funny, but Primal had only given him a look of disappointment, like he hadn't expected anything more from the raybot.

He could have justified himself, explained everything that was behind his reasoning, but he'd given up on that the day the Maximal High Council sealed Protoform X into a stasis pod instead of meting out the proper death sentence to the murderer. The other Maximals didn't want to hear the reasons behind the practicality. They didn't want reality. They wanted to keep going against all odds, to find a solution to an impossible situation, and they saw him as not one of them because he didn't believe in their ideals. He could have tried to make them see his way, but he just walked away, back to the quarters someone had given him at some point (Cheetor had led him there, pointing out the technology Autobots had used and would used again, optics wide with excitement) to sit and stare at the wall. How long did the cat have? That depended on how long the crab decided to drag it out. Judging by the panic/anger reaction from the Maximals, it would take Cheetor a very long time to die, unless someone pushed the crab's hand. All it would take was an attack, or Megatron crushing Rampage's spark, and if that happened, the cat would die.

Depth Charge had to fight the urge to go back and tell the other Maximals that he'd reconsidered and advised an attack. It would be a mercy to the cat, but they would never forgive him for forcing Cheetor's early death. Not that it really mattered what they thought of him.

Except…

Except that the raybot WAS a Maximal. A Maximal different than Primal and the ape's crew, yes, but a Maximal all the same, and there were certain things that all Maximals held in common. Certain moral codes that held the difference between a Maximal and a Predacon. Stripped down to the bare ethics, Primal and Depth Charge were really not all that different. Things that Primal could afford, like ideals and hope, however, had been forcibly burned away from Depth Charge. There was no softness in his definition of right and wrong, no bleeding from white or black into ambiguous gray. And after what he had endured, he'd sworn it would never happen to anyone else. That vow was still in effect today, and every day, until Rampage was dead. No one deserved to be that monster's victim, not even a Predacon, not even Primal, and especially not Cheetor.

That meant Depth Charge had to do something, and he knew what. Let Primal try to negotiate with Megatron; he would head straight for Rampage. There was one thing the crab might agree to, one thing he'd give up Cheetor for, and that was another hostage. An exchange, 'bot for 'bot, taking the place of the cat in the crab's hands. Primal wouldn't understand it, why it had to be this way, but Depth Charge knew there was a chance--a small chance, but a chance--that Rampage would accept this swap. Primal would insist on sacrificing himself if anyone at all, but while Megatron would eagerly agree, Depth Charge wouldn't allow it even if Rampage DID agree. There was only one Maximal he was willing to give up to the crab: himself.

Because that was the kind of Maximal he was.

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* * *

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* * *

_Behind the attitude, behind the practical advice, there are all the basic beliefs that make up a Maximal. How deeply does Depth Charge believe?_


	39. Historical Accuracy

**Historical Accuracy**

* * *

Every time someone mentioned "the good old days," Blackarachnia wanted to spit. It seemed that most logical 'bots could abandon all reason and record to praise history as if days of yore had been any better than today. Megatron glorified the Decepticons' era; Primal, the Autobots'. Dinobot proudly claimed his overly-vaunted honor was a remnant of past times when warriors fought according to his strange code; Rattrap pointed to his great-aunt as if she was somehow any better than femmebots of today. Even Tarantulas, normally as cynical as she, spoke of the distant past with a kind of wistfulness she couldn't understand.

She often wondered if she was the only one who researched the history everyone regarded so fondly. Didn't it strike anyone as odd that the facts of yesterday that remained appeared much the same as the facts of today? Lists of dead and alive, scientific discovery, wars, peace, and trade, all the little bits of living that painted a picture of reality, not Utopia. Heroes and villains were the people living today with years added on. Tomorrow they, too, would be legends.

"Good old days"? Nostalgia, nothing more, gave the emotion to those words. Aged robots didn't possess mystic wisdom that had carried them this far--they had simply survived to live another day. It wasn't honor that won the Great Wars or pristine ancestors that weaseled out of death. They were people, just people, and in their optics lay the vast array of regrets everyone carried. Perhaps they deserved respect for their experience, but Blackarachnia shook her head in disgust at the reverent awe the Predacons and Maximals directed at the Autobots and Decepticons.

When the key code access to the Ark rested in her memory banks, she didn't waste her time on reflection or anticipation for the elder race carried in the massive ship's hold. They were only slumbering now, but they had ultimately died, and their usefulness to her had therefore expired. The living were the ones she could manipulate, the present her best tool. Honoring the dead past was, at best, a justification for the actions of the present or a comfort for those living here and now.

Don't talk to her of "the good old days." Yesterday hadn't been any easier than today.

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* * *

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* * *

_Blackarachnia seems to be the only one in the Beast Wars with any sense of history. It struck me that she would be the most realistic about the past_.


	40. Surrender the Victim

**Surrender the Victim**

* * *

It is said in mythology that once, long ago, there existed an innocent maiden so beautiful that even the lord of the underworld wished to have her. When one is the dark lord Hades, however, a wish is nothing; he reached out and TOOK her. She was dragged down with him to his realm, and she cried out for her mother's aid.

Her mother heard her cries too late, and she struck the Earth with a terrible fury born of grief. From it grew nothing, for if Demeter was to be deprived of her daughter, then the world would be deprived of her bounty in turn. Humanity starved, and Zeus heard the wails of the dying.

He sent a message to Demeter. "Why do you withhold fertility from the world?" the message asked.

"My daughter is gone," she replied. "Bring me back my daughter, or leave me be!"

Zeus tried to change her mind, but in the end she left to wander the world on her own. He was left to listen to the starving world, and he felt pity. He sent a message to his brother Hades, asking him to give Persephone back.

Hades did, of course, because even dark lords do not defy the will of the king of the heavens. But before she went, he persuaded Persephone to eat three seeds of the pomegranate, thus condemning her to spend half of her life with him as his wife.

One wonders, what Persephone felt, being brought from the light down into the dark. Was she afraid of it? Did she feel some sort of connection to it? There is little ever said about the victim herself, despite how she was traded back and forth between the world and underworld without consideration of how she felt about it. She held out so long without tasting the food of the dark realm, only to be ripped away from the loving arms of her mother once more by a mere morsel.

He had to think, though, that she must have been tempted beyond endurance by those three sweet red seeds. How they must have burst on her tongue, quenching her thirst with their tart juice, but ultimately being too small to stop her hunger. They must have set off such a craving in her, to taste what she could never have. Forbidden fruit for a child of the day, belonging to the light but secretly coveting the night. That agonized decision to stay as what she was, but that horrid craving of what she couldn't have was a familiar one to him.

Perhaps, like him , Persephone felt relief because she could keep her grace as Demeter's daughter, yet be wed to Hades. Remaining innocent because the choice was taken from her...but she could at last have her fill of the pomegranate.

.

* * *

.

* * *

_Believe it or not, that would be TM2 Dinobot's take on the Persephone story. Dinobot always wanted to be a Predacon after becoming a Maximal, but he didn't quite dare take that last step into the underworld. When the choice was taken from him under Megatron's cloning of his form, he was able to keep the heroic image of his former self and live as a Predacon as well. I simply gave the myth his perspective._


	41. Waiting for a Decision

**Waiting for a Decision**

* * *

Tarantulas stared down at the body laying torn in his trap, and waited to feel something about it. Blackarachnia's empty optics didn't stare straight into his spark, or even stare. There wasn't any sort of intelligence left there to stare with, and bodies were just bodies. It took some kind of meaning inside the body to draw out guilt or triumph in the victor. Instead of accusation, offline optics pointed dead blankness in the vague direction of a tree stump only inches from her nose. Limp golden spider legs draped over twisted limbs that wouldn't ever move under their own power again, and the curves of her chest had warped with the force of the stone that had punctured its armor.

Inspired by Dinobot's defeat of Megatron, Tarantulas had rigged a trap of the hardest stone this mudball planet could supply and a tree branch. There was no metal technology to register on scanners, and he hadn't stayed nearby to put the local wildlife on edge. A single spider-light left close by had told him the trap had gone off without a hitch, and here he was, looking at the results. The tree branch had whipped around, at the perfect height, at the perfect angle, and impaled her spark. She hadn't even had time to scream. The angle of her body indicated that, in all probability, she had been looking away at the time and had died before the pain had begun to register. There was no expression of pain or surprise on her face. In fact, there was no expression at all. If someone had made art from the scene, it would be entitled "Fallen Beauty" for the stark simplicity of the stoic dead body amidst nature.

He hadn't expected that. He'd always found the she-spider to be almost demonically attractive, but he'd never expected to find her death…appealing, at least aesthetically. The concept had always held great fascination for him. There had been vast plots, other days with other traps that she'd escaped only at the last second, usually through quick thought on her own part or quicker actions by her Maximal allies. He'd chuckled his way through many days coming up with ways to kill her--and they'd all failed. To be completely honest, he'd come to expect her to evade his plots. His spider-light had informed him that this trap had gone off, and he'd more than half-expected her to be waiting here with a mocking smile and the trap reset under his feet when he arrived.

But she hadn't, and she wasn't, and she wouldn't ever, anymore.

And that, for some reason he couldn't comprehend, left Tarantulas feeling nothing. Nothing at all. Feeling as if he was in fact disturbing art--although he'd never once cared about such things previously--he ventured onto the tableau of trap and trapped and hesitated. After a moment of wondering what was wrong with his own reactions, he knelt down next to his prey's outflung arm. There was no panic in its positioning. Blackarachnia hadn't spent her last moment alive reaching out for help. Her pincer lay in turned back on itself in the unnatural repose of someone who had fallen without the ability to feel the pain of a kinked joint, and he stared at it for too long without really connecting it to the death of the she-spider. It just seemed too…wrong. It was as if he expected her to straighten out and attack him.

The trap had been sprung, and yet he felt caught. He didn't feel guilty--Predacons in general didn't feel guilt when their enemies fell, much less Predacon Secret Police--nor did he feel triumphant. Guilt he might have understood and dismissed as misplaced and neurotic; triumph, he had expected. This complete lack of feeling he didn't know how to deal with. After spending so much time in hate and planning, there should be SOMETHING.

His head lifted to regard her face. It was her expression, he decided. More than the loose-limbed pose of a dead 'bot where he hadn't precisely expected to see one, seeing no expression whatsoever on that dead robot's face threw him for a loop. If there had been fear and anger there, he could have gloated over it. She had known who had set death up for her, and gone to her death hating him. Or shock; shock would indicate she had at least SEEN death coming. He could have gotten satisfaction out of knowing that his trap had taken her down efficiently and without a chance at escape. Even resignation would have given him SOMETHING to react to.

Without something to react to, he was lost. It took actually killing his prey to realize that it was the chase that had driven him. For every trap he'd ever set for her, he'd waited with laughter ringing through his lair for the imagined response to the newest attempt at killing her. Maybe it would only be a baited comment in the middle of the next battle, or the ruins of the trap left behind and rigged to snag him in return, but there was a kind of tortured appreciation of the hatred and trickery between spiders in every exchange. There was challenge in the black optics, and that cynical twitch of her lips in reply to his chuckles.

No trap ever went according to plan in the Beast Wars; the odds had apparently caught up with them today. Here she lay, the plan complete, the trap sprung, and everything Tarantulas thought he'd feel falling flat in the strange, numb nothing filling his spark. No, not even numbness. He could feel, and it was the lack of anything there to feel that left him oddly vulnerable. He thought, in that disjointed way of a person stunned past previous experience, that he should apologize to her for not feeling her own death. He'd planned for it to be more of a struggle. Sorry about that.

He stood up slowly, still looking down at the dead body laid out like a scene from a tragedy he'd accidentally walked into without any sort of background on the story. It didn't look like Blackarachnia. It just looked like any other dead 'bot. There wasn't even a Maximal insignia his Predacon sensibilities could take pride in. The Maximals would eventually show up, however, and he should leave before they found him standing over their dead comrade. Slowly, a step at a time, he backed away from the fallen beauty. He couldn't manage to tear his gaze away from the golden drape of spider legs over tree roots. He had to leave. Silverbolt would be furious, and grief was an explosive emotion he knew better than to tangle with while it was fresh. Later, there would be a plan for dealing with the Maximals. Later, perhaps, when he could decide what it was he felt. When the waiting would be over, one way or another.

Tarantulas turned and fled toward his lair, afraid of what he waited for.

.

* * *

.

* * *

_"I just killed Blackarachnia."_

_"How do you feel about that?"_

_"...I don't know."_


	42. Ethical Dilemma

**Ethical Dilemma**

* * *

Rampage had chosen his lair well. The dark hole of the cave's mouth was sheltered by an overhang preventing effective attacks from above, and the water lapped at the sand at the entrance while a sheer cliff face protected the landward side. A few steps out of the cave, and the crab could safely retreat into the ocean depths, and nobody could walk into that cave while he was inside. Well, not without a collection of fatal wounds, anyway. It was a good location, ideal for the Transmetal crab, and Depth Charge loathed it on sight. There was no way he could approach it without the crab seeing him first, and while normally he wouldn't care, in this situation, it was worse than bad. To prevent any hasty action on Rampage's part, he'd been forced to contact the Predacon to make sure his intentions were understood.

Hearing the crab gloat in person was bad enough, but being laughed at via radio was just humiliating. The reason for the laughter didn't make the raybot feel any better. Depth Charge hated negotiating, hated negotiating from a weak position even more, and there weren't words to describe how much he hated his current, negotiated position.

The gun made an unusually loud sound when it hit the sand. His remora scanner/launcher made a similar amount of noise when he dropped it, and he actually flinched at the sound when his tail-spear dug into the ground. Metallic and grating, an unnatural noise against the background of waves on the shore--he'd never known that was the sound of defeat.

No, not defeat. Submission.

"Alright, X." He spread his hands, surrendering as he stepped forward out of reach of the discarded weaponry. Something proud in him shuddered, already wounded by the terms demanded by the crab and now forced to watch control slip completely out of his grasp. "I'm here. Disarmed, like you wanted." His voice sneered, optics narrowed and blazing with hatred, but this was the moment of decision. Rampage could go back on their agreement, kill Cheetor and come out to fight him with the cat's life-fluids staining his hands, and there wasn't anything he'd be able to do about it. This was the best he'd been able to come up with to keep the other Maximal alive, with the same likelihood of failure and only an off-chance of success. "We had a deal," he growled when there was no response.

"O-ho, old friend. So anxious for your own demise?" Finally, there was movement in the dark mouth of the cave, red and purple and emerald green. "Your chest launcher," Rampage said sharply, staying in the shelter of stone. "It's disarmed?"

"Don't trust me, X? I gave my word." There was a rough chuckle, dark humor emerging and subsiding. "It's offline."

"What's offline can be brought back online," the Predacon drawled thoughtfully, his own humor just as dark but running deeper and more sinister. "No, Fins, I trust you to find a loophole to exploit. Your word to me is under constant doubt."

He took a step forward, surrender sliding into something more aggressive as that pricked at his cringing pride. His fists balled up, and he jerked a thumb at his chest. "I gave my word as a MAXIMAL," he snapped, stung. "If anyone's word is at doubt, it's yours, creep!"

"Careful," the shadowed 'bot cautioned mockingly, "or do you not want the kittycat back alive?" Light glinted off of something--yellow and blue and liquid with mechfluid--as Rampage shifted to drop it in front of his feet.

The weaker position in negotiations was the one that had to make concessions. Depth Charge backed off, hands opening again and his stance regressing from attack to surrender. Angry but helpless, he slowly lifted his right hand to the side of his beast mode's mouth, opening the hidden catch and exposing his circuitry. Turning slightly so his actions were obvious to the watching crab, he detached the feeder between grenade launcher and the storage area for the grenades themselves. Before he closed the panel, he gestured at the gap and asked, "Is that enough, or should I tear it out completely?"

"Sarcasm becomes you," Rampage chortled. "I believe that's enough…for now."

He refused to shiver at the promise in those words.

.

* * *

.

* * *

_A ficlet based of this quote: "You can't commit rape if your victim's a willing participant." Depth Charge sacrifices himself. Primal would be appalled--and probably proud._


	43. Unthinking Violence

**Unthinking Violence**

* * *

Quickstrike knew, when he bothered to think about it, that he wasn't made for thinking. Most of the time he just accepted his inherent violence as the instinct it was, but it was one of the things that puzzled him about the Maximals: they insisted that he had been a Maximal protoform, yet they also insisted that they were peaceful. If he was so hard-wired to be violent, how could he be one of them? The closest explanation he could come up with was that his circuitry was scrambled when his stasis pod crashed. How did that explain Silverbolt, then? The bird-dog was completely opposite of him; could they possibly have the same origins?

It was here that his mind usually bogged down with the fleeting bits of hatred. He wanted to beat up the other fuzor, prove his superiority, and for brief moments he hated Silverbolt. Those seconds were common, however. He held smoldering hatred for all of them, Maximal and Predacon alike, short-lived spots of heated anger that consumed coherent thought before they passed. They often succeeded in turning him from serious thought, instead making him think of how the metal would crumple under his fangs and their optics would show their submission as he stood over them. Oddly enough, it wasn't their deaths he craved, but dominance. He wanted the fight, the violence, and the rush of battle.

When he forced his mind to concentrate on the thoughts, he knew that he had never been a Maximal. Nor had he been a Predacon. At best, he conceded that he could have been a neutral. What he was, and he knew he had been so even before the stasis pod, was a mercenary. It wasn't just Silverbolt those painfully bright flashes of fury lit. He'd attack anyone for the sheer joy of defeating them, and he'd join the 'bot, any 'bot, who offered him the greatest chance of a fight--as Tarantulas knew. The spider had offered what Quickstrike wanted, and in return the fuzor offered his services. It wasn't loyalty for the spider, but it wasn't betrayal for Megatron. It was simply a fulfillment of a mercenary contract.

Of course, once he realized that, the thoughts wouldn't stop.

He referred to the violence as something he wanted, but in truth it was a need. It was an addiction that Tarantulas had taken an advantage of, feeding the junkie, and deep in his mind was the quiet whisper of a prediction. The need would only increase as it was fed, and eventually the rage, the violence, the hate…it would stop being quick flashes. It would linger, and it would fill him up, and it would destroy him.

That wasn't something he wanted to know. His mind could only circle around such things with confused intensity until the craving rose in him to overwhelm everything else. Even then, it disturbed him, scratching around the edges of his consciousness because he knew he couldn't deal with it. He wasn't made to handle the feeble prompting from damaged programming, urging him to turn away from the violence. That wasn't an option for him, anymore. Whatever else he may have been, had his stasis pod landed right, he was stuck as he was now.

But, most of the time, he just didn't think about it.

* * *

.

* * *

_Quickstrike was never reprogrammed as a Predacon. Even allowing for damage from his statis pod, that makes him somewhat of a mystery. I mean, he not only joined the Predacons, but he LOVES violence. That can't just be pod damage._


	44. Vigil

**Vigil**

* * *

At some point, he didn't do it for hope. Time passed, and hope faded. The eastern sky's stars disappeared into the rising sun, and the world turned once more.

He watched the sky change, days blurring into one another as the sun streaked by overhead. Predacon attacks sparked among the dark and light differences, but by and large the time went by unimpeded. When he looked back, he had nothing to measure it with. There was only the waiting, and the hope leeching away into dull duty. Always, always he watched the sky. Always, always, he waited for a bit of light out of place, holding his breath at a falling star as it streamed down toward the horizon--only to exhale disappointment. Falling stars were not alien in nature, and that was what he waited for. He watched the natural, waiting for the return of the unnatural.

Waiting for the return of his friends.

And then just waiting.

The hope died, but its memory lingered on. A sense of duty grew as the hope faded, as if making himself stand watch would ultimately bring about what he no longer believed would happen. He stood and watched the dawn come, too cynical to have faith. During the coldest hour before dawn, he bitterly wondered at his own conflicting urges. It was if the ghost of hope propped him up, but it also poked him as a sharp reminder that he'd failed his friends in even this. He didn't have the strength to believe that they would return to him. How weak. How very untrusting. Surely they would have never have given him up for lost.

Guilt took over where hope gave out. A hollow attempt at convincing himself that he still believed they'd come back, that he'd be here to see them return to Earth. It was no longer a friend waiting for friends, but someone who couldn't convince himself to abandon the stubborn duty that ordered him outside every morning before the sun rose. There was just something inside him that had dug in, and it refused to listen to doubt. It denied resignation, then certainty. It refused to listen to reason. When even guilt wore down, revealing a hint of resentment misdirected at the missing duo, the duty remained. It stayed steadfast while he silently railed at the pre-dawn sky, the dim stars. They hadn't come back! How could he be so stupid to come out here and wait? They weren't coming back!

Depression followed as he couldn't deceive himself any longer, seeing how the resentment was only hurt in disguise. It pained him that they had not returned, but he knew that they would have come back if they could. The anger was denial in another form, covering fear. If they hadn't come back, then they couldn't, and if they couldn't…

Hope faded. Guilt sloughed away. Naivety trembled. Duty stood silently inside him, watching the sun rise.

In the end, the alien light did indeed fall back to the planet. Maybe he hadn't seen it cross the dawn sky, but that wasn't to say he hadn't waited for it all the same. The first ray of sun revealed duty to be patient and waiting. It had never given up. And wasn't that the very definition of hope?

As he looked at what had fallen, at his friends in whatever form they had become, the watcher could only glory in the fiery light that ended the coldest hour of the night. He'd known they would come back.

Who was this? He smiled at Optimus Primal.

"Old friends."

.

* * *

.

* * *

_A ficlet about Cheetor waiting, even after it seems like everyone and everything has given up. I don't like Cheetor or Tigerhawk, but it seemed applicable. He never gave up on Tigatron and Airazor_.


	45. Alterations

**Alterations**

* * *

There had been screams. There had been gasps and cries and helpless noises of suffered pain.

Now there remained nothing but the labored rasp of dented air intakes, waiting with each breath for the last blow to descend. For any other 'bot, it would have ended by now. The fact that he hadn't struck the death blow yet confused him, and that confusion drove him away from the crippled form in the sand like Megatron's hand on his spark. He turned his back to his victim and looked out the cavern entrance because there were no answers in Depth Charge's broken body. He had what he'd always wanted of his victims. There was no reason to stop. Was there?

If the magenta optics hadn't been punched out, he imagined that they would have stared accusingly in his direction. How dare he make his oldest friend and enemy wait? For all the pain inflicted upon the raybot, once he'd ceased to react there wasn't a reason to keep him alive. That had been the pattern he followed for every person who came kicking and screaming into his grasp: torture until it no longer amused him, and then execute the pathetic remains. Magenta optics--long gone, and dark with unconsciousness at this point had they been more than glass scattered in the sand--drilled into his back and demanded an explanation for his deviation from the established roles. The victim moved out of that role with every continued breath, and the uncomfortable feeling that today he was not a murderer had driven Rampage to the mouth of the cave. The roles didn't fit.

Outside the cave was a beach like any other, another battlefield for their ongoing war instead of the scene set for torture. Yet the crab's gaze was troubled. If Depth Charge didn't die today, then a fundamental part of his life had to change. It was one thing to let one Maximal live; exceptions could find excuses or respect. But there was a vast difference between a fighter and a victim. To let the victim live would change…something. He wasn't sure what. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what.

He knew one thing for certain: if Depth Charge died today, he would stay forever the unnaturally docile 'bot that had come to him today. That 'bot bore little resemblance to the fighter who went down flinging insults and earned an honor guard on his life, the life that stomped around in Rampage's memories and amused him in the times between their meetings. If today ended that life, then this last memory of his oldest enemy would overwrite everything previous. Optics sharp with accusation and defiance but stifled by voluntary surrender stayed steady in the back of his mind, memories of a soldier forced to submission even as Depth Charge lingered on the edge of dying.

Rampage scowled out at the receding tide, refusing to turn at meet that nonexistent gaze. He had no ability to feel guilt or remorse. He could barely comprehend the thought of self-hate. They were all concepts he had trouble with, as were all emotions that required doubt and reflection on the depth of his personality. Rampage, killer and torturer, simply couldn't analyze himself. He couldn't compare himself to those around him and find himself lacking in one way or another. He couldn't separate out the parts that weren't right and wasn't able to figure out the pieces that made him wrong.

Rampage was.

Everyone else wasn't.

He understood, in a way, that no one else thought that way, but he couldn't make himself care even if he wanted to.

Imaginary optics pried into his mind, foreign thoughts of someone he pretended not to realize anything about, and Depth Charge whispered, _"Liar."_

The Transmetal cat slumped in the sand outside the cavern where he'd left him, and Rampage nudged him with a foot. Offline still, then. That honestly surprised him a little, as he'd judged the damage carefully meted out on Cheetor to be superficial. He'd expected the cat to have woken up before the tide turned and crawled back to his Maximal friends, probably mewling for help. That's what he'd planned. He'd wanted the whole stupid faction to storm the cave he'd chosen to torture Depth Charge in, only to witness him escape into the ocean while the dead body of their friend waited for them to bring home. It would be delicious. Their pain would be exquisite.

_"How do you know they'd react like that?"_ Depth Charge sneered in his head, and Rampage shifted uncomfortably. The raybot was as offline as Cheetor, but his imagination could apparently circumvent such things as reality.

He'd known. How long had he been a Predacon under Megatron's cruelty? Days and months, through cycles of the moon and changing seasons that developed the reluctant fighters' personalities in his plans like film in an ancient camera. He knew these Maximals as he'd never known anyone, even the scientists who'd twisted his spark to breaking. They'd become real where before his life was inhabited by empty shells that could scream and cry but never be more than passing pieces in shallow plans. These people, even the Predacons he hated to work with, had bigger parts in his life. He could map the complicated emotional ties between the Maximals and plot how to hurt them individually or as a group using those ties to choke them.

Thus, it rather upset him that he'd misjudged his torture of the cat like this. It screwed up the timing of his plans and made him think he didn't know everything he thought he did. It made him wonder why he'd suddenly felt the urge to check if Cheetor had woken yet, right before he'd let the death blow fall. Something had made him hesitate, as if he'd been waiting for an interruption late in coming. He'd known the Maximals, known their reactions and responses, and something hadn't been right. They should have been here by now. They should have…interfered.

Now he shuddered at the strange, creeping dismay he felt when he turned back toward the victim waiting to die.

_"How well do you know yourself?"_ his mind supplied when Depth Charge's head didn't lift from the odd angle it lay on the mechfluid-soaked sand. His hand twisted toward his gun despite knowing the voice didn't come from his favorite enemy; the acid in that voice burned mockery into his head as only Depth Charge could manage. He knew what the Maximal ray would say to him better than he knew how he'd react to Megatron's domination on any given day. Rampage couldn't figure himself out, but Depth Charge…

That strange apprehension surged like the tide outside, creeping higher until it lapped over the edges of his thoughts. It irritated and alarmed him as he stood over the blue-and-silver Maximal. They'd tried to kill each other for so long that he didn't understand the sudden depth of feeling in this particular moment in the fight.

Except this time it hadn't been a fight. Rampage had kidnapped the precious little kitty of the Maximals, and instead of the challenge he'd expected--and planned on accepting, because when had he ever turned down Fish Face's challenges?--he'd been forced to scramble for nonchalance when Depth Charge had contacted him with a different offer entirely. Apparently he'd misjudged the strength of his raybot's ties to the rest of the Maximals.

_"Maybe that should have given you a clue that things wouldn't go as planned?"_ Depth Charge said nastily, and Rampage's hands tightened into massive fists.

He let them relax, MADE them relax, because, yes, he should have taken that as a sign that his plan wouldn't work right. He'd accepted the offer eagerly, of course, because when had Depth Charge ever negotiated with him before? The idea of a peaceful trade was laughable, and he'd expected the Maximals to attack at any moment when the ray began to disarm himself. Optimus Primal may have thought to sacrifice himself like some martyr to a cause, but the pompous Maximal leader would have never allowed any of his crew to do the same. Such hypocrisies never ceased to amuse Rampage, but in this case it had left him more than baffled as the raybot submitted to his terms and reluctantly exchanged his life for the cat's--and the rest of the Maximals failed to intervene.

The plan still stood as it was, however, because he'd immediately connected the facts. Depth Charge was a loner. He wouldn't have told the other Maximals what he'd decided to do, being the only one who understood X enough to think he could possibly influence him one way or another. Of course Depth Charge had been right. Depth Charge could nearly always predict what he would do. He understood Rampage in a way the crab could barely wrap his mind around. The closest thing to knowing himself, he'd found in the course of their drawn-out game, was to know his pursuer.

It turned out that he didn't know him all that well after all. The prisoner who'd walked into his grasp was an unfamiliar 'bot. Nor did he know the Maximal cat, Cheetor, as well as he thought. Two such miscalculations unsettled him, changed his plans in ways he wasn't sure he could adapt to, and now he didn't know at all how he should react.

Rampage hated it when Depth Charge was right, even if the Depth Charge who annoyed him spoke only in his head. Even if his imaginary Depth Charge born little resemblance to the real Depth Charge he had last seen--and tortured offline. This Depth Charge was the one he wanted to remember. This was the one who was more significant at this moment, smugly pointing out that he didn't know himself even to the extent of knowing the ending of his own plans. Cheetor's injuries weren't supposed to be extensive enough to hamper him going for help. The Maximals, good and pure and disgustingly heroic, were supposed to be here by now. His victim--

--he wasn't ready to admit that to himself yet. Something shifted inside his head, subconscious blocks and chunks of personality rearranging themselves under the surface of his thoughts, and he didn't need the voice of an enemy to point out that the things he'd always been able to push aside or dismiss as unimportant were going to require explanations. Old customs were coming back to haunt him. The game's rules were changing.

It hadn't been long since the hostage exchange. The Maximals would discover Cheetor's body before long in their surveillance of a hostage situation, even if the hostage in question had changed. They would come and save the day, but if they didn't hurry, Depth Charge wouldn't be alive to save.

That made Rampage very, very jittery, and he didn't know why. And that only made it worse.

He didn't know what to do with hostages besides kill them. He didn't know how to deal with Depth Charge outside of a fight. Before, they'd forced combat on each other with an inevitability born of unhealthy glee and vengeful hate. Depth Charge had never understood his side of the battle, and he'd come to regard the stubborn Maximal with a weird kind of affection that didn't contribute well to any kind of understanding at all. But since he didn't understand himself, that had never been a problem. Now it bothered him.

That was the problem of trying to know himself by knowing his enemy. At some point, it started to work. And that was really just too confusing for the average psychopathic Predacon, much less Protoform X.

It was one thing to batter Depth Charge into submission and stand guard over his involuntary surrender. The twisted kind of respect for a long-standing foe had roots in his oldest relationship. Now he had a variety of new relationships, ones that didn't seem like they were leading anywhere fast at least as long as the Beast Wars would continue to stalemate. He should examine old traditions and discard a broken toy now that he had new ones to play the game with. Depth Charge had broken the pattern, surrendering without a fight. The easiest action would be to follow through and land the killing blow, willing victim or not.

No one had ever given themselves up to die before. Once the novelty of a sacrifice wore off, the fun disappeared. The struggle was the part he enjoyed. That realization felt weird. Take the struggle away, strip away the raybot's weapons and snide remarks, and it left Rampage standing there despondently in a dark cavern, waiting for something that wouldn't come. Waiting for a death that he suddenly realized, despite himself, he didn't want.

He'd kidnapped Cheetor because the opportunity was there. He hadn't killed the cat because that would defeat the ultimate purpose of using his captured life to taunt his old friend. The ever-entertaining emotional ties were there, had he chosen to slaughter Cheetor and watch Depth Charge explode into fury, but the cat wasn't a random colonist or starbase resident. He was a Maximal with a suppressed desire for the traitorous black widow and rising resentment for Silverbolt, and Rampage wanted to see what kind of soap opera entertainment would come when that geyser eventually burst. He wanted to see who would side with the cat against the wolf fuzor. He wanted to see if the rat would attack Blackarachnia, finally provoked into an act of hate. He wanted to see how Depth Charge would react.

He wanted to go back to the base and play cards against Quickstrike. He wanted to threaten Tarantulas with disembowelment for trying to scan his spark while he slept. He wanted to delicately rip holes in Dinobot's over-programming and find out how much of the original Predacon traitor remained underneath.

He wanted to torture. He wanted to hear the shrieks only true pain could tear free.

Afterward, however, he wanted to see how he'd changed his victims.

He didn't want his last memory of Depth Charge to be of a victim at all.

Somewhat dazed, the crab looked between the two bodies--still alive, and when did that become part of the plan?--waiting for rescue. One he'd never meant to kill, and the other he wanted to live. He'd never felt himself change, or seen anyone else change around him. There had never been a time or a place to stop long enough to notice a difference. Now the difference smacked him in the face, as hard to ignore and entirely part of him as a fourth transformation, and he didn't know what to do about it.

_"I didn't see this coming,"_ Depth Charge said softly from inside the flood of revealed desires, and Rampage had to agree. He had the feeling that no one could predict how he would react from here on out, and wondered what the real Depth Charge would say to that.

.

* * *

.

* * *

_Based off of the idea of someone frozen at the moment of death, never to change, and continuing with the ""You can't commit rape if your victim's a willing participant." quote-prompt, this Rampage ficlet came out, ummmmm...different. I basically sat down and said, "What version of Rampage HAVEN'T I done yet?"_

_I've had Reluctant Good Guy (TM) Rampage in the Reluctant Heroes series. Evil Bstrd Rampage has crept into every fic I've done of him, as has Victim Rampage, for some reason. I've never done Outright Good Guy Rampage, 'cause that would just be weird. So this is Changing Rampage (different than Plotting/Learning Rampage, who his scheming his way through the Celestial Skies series). This is a Rampage who finds his goals in life defined differently than he'd originally thought and stumbles through the confusion of finding out he even HAS goals._

_I think Rampage is growing up._


	46. 30 Minutes

* * *

**30 Minutes**

* * *

Some day, they would return to Cybertron, these warriors fighting desperately in a far-away time and place. 'Some day,' so vague and impossible to pin down. There's no definition for 'some,' no calendar for 'day.' Just 'some day,' and they waited because at least that gave them a hint of the future.

Some day, it wouldn't matter if they were Maximals or Predacons. 'Some day,' as if they grasped at hopes that would, under the uncertain terms of that phrase, not slide completely from their hands. Some day never really had to come, but as long as it was phrased so carefully, it seemed as though it eventually would. It slipped over their common sense like a blindfold on reality, and they said it again. The war could end, some day. How generic a statement, told in the cautious, inoffensive language of a fortune teller mass-producing according to a zodiac sadly out of date...

Some day, the lies they told themselves would muffle the truth and they could believe what they said. 'Some day,' some far-off, distant point in the nebulous future that might occur if they'd stubbornly stick by the statements, deep down, they only wish they could believe. There's no doubt in an exact date, but if they avoid it they can gain some wiggle room and hold on to naivety in the ambiguity of 'some' and 'day.'

Some day, they'd see each other again. Some day, it wouldn't matter who or what they were, only that it was 'some day,' and none of the problems of the present would exist in the speculative future. They could defy expectations and outside pressure and try something new in the freedom, some day.

The problem with 'some day' is that nobody knows when it expires until it's too late. There's only the dim hope in the repetition, and suddenly the real future has arrived and is staring them in the face.

One day, Tigerhawk plummets from the sky.

One day, Blackarachnia looks up at him, at it, at her, at the sparks entwined in that Vok-created chest.

Silverbolt's hands settle on her shoulders. Inside Tigerhawk, what had been Tigatron curls inquiringly around what had been Airazor. Neither male understands the betrayal of something that had never been. Neither understands that their concern--and, perhaps more importantly, the acceptance of one pincer raising to lay over Silverbolt's hand and the flip of a feathered wing on tiger paws--only makes that betrayal harder. They had been waiting for a 'some day' that never came, and while they waited, one day, something else happened.

One day, they'd realized that they could wait forever for 'some day,' or make up something new that wasn't a dream and didn't have a distant point in the future where something might finally turn out right. Some things are worth the wait. Others, well, they got it right, one day, and now they wouldn't have to wait at all.

One day--just one, a definitive date in time, in the present and not somewhere in the future--erased all the might-have-beens that never were. One day, they look into a void between them where they'd wished something could have been, and it isn't there, because what 'some day' could have given them just isn't the same as what they'd gotten, one day.

Some day, they might forgive themselves for that.

* * *

_The title comes from the song by T.A.T.U., since this seems to belong to the same storyline as the "All The Things She Said" ficlets. Airazor and Blackarachnia face each other with everything they'd said and felt hanging between them, unreachable._


	47. Survive

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**Survive**

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Depth Charge sat alone in the cell and wondered how he could have thought it would have ended differently.

The other Maximals on Earth had asked him about "survivor's guilt," tried to help him, prodded by Rhinox's concerns and Primal's pathetic attempts at congratulations and comfort. The whole thing was rolled into one awkward package he wished he could return to sender. It wasn't that he didn't know about survivor's guilt, or that he didn't appreciate it when Rattrap told him--in typical Rattrap style--via verbal abuse that he worried about him. Even Cheetor and Rhinox managed a few words despite how busy their planned return to Cybertron made them all. The fact that the other Maximals had found time amidst the preparation and celebration was...touching, he supposed.

He'd looked into the face of his nemesis and stared down death in emerald green optics. Then he had to walk away a survivor, and the only Maximal he felt had an inkling of understanding watched him with a furrowed brow and never approached. She kept her fuzor from approaching him, either. He appreciated that in abstract when he remembered that the rest of the universe existed. The Maximals' concern felt cloying and temporary. Survival, at least, was undeniably real.

The Predacons were subdued, presumed dead, and Megatron awaited judgment as they prepared to leave. Depth Charge pitched in to help whenever possible. A fleeting fantasy they might be, but these Maximals were the only ones left alive to regard him as a companion. His fellow Maximals were otherwise long dead, scattered on an empty colony and destroyed starbase. He saw them looking back at him through Cheetor's eager smile and Rattrap's anticipation. But Rhinox was wrong. He didn't feel guilty for living where the rest had died. He'd delved deep into that particular emotion and emerged with vengence overwhelming all else.

His vengence was had. Rampage--Protoform X--had died at his hands, and the body melted into slag afterward. He'd poured the hot metal into the base's volcano himself once he'd recovered enough to retrieve the body and go through with this last precaution, like the crab would return if every part of him weren't dispersed in the lava, never to reform and surface triumphantly. Primal had watched him with concerned optics and not protested. Time and irrefutable proof of Rampage's danger had worn down the Maximal leader's protests, and there had been relief deep in the ape's careworn face when Primal had lifted him from the ocean floor and smiled down at Depth Charge, only partially intact but still alive: victim and executioner welcomed as a friend. Relief that Depth Charge had lived. Relief that Rampage had died.

So he did not protest when Depth Charge insisted on seeing the last evidence of the monster destroyed. He didn't try to take the body parts with them or say anything against the time the raybot spent searching for pieces scattered by the explosion. Primal simply let him do what he had to as if he thought Depth Charge possessed by some form of penance. "One last act" or some such noble deed instead of weary paranoia. The raybot could have laughed, if he'd still had that ability.

But, no, he instead sat his turn at guarding Megatron as the ex-tyrant ranted about Maximal conspiracies and the revenge he would wreak for this indignity. He wondered, as he listened to Megatron fume, if the Predacon had any idea of how much he related to his crazed ravings. He, too, had sat alone in cells, alone and at the mercy of a unsympathetic few who'd never been there, could much less imagine being there, when the universe went mad.

Life, Depth Charge had learned, was not fair. He'd had it taught to him by an insane experiment on Omicron and had it burned into his spark by locked doors in Maximal cells. Justice was a relative word. He could empathize with Megatron, but not sympathize.

The Maximals took him back to Cybertron with him, and he hadn't the words to tell them it was the last thing he wanted. How they could overlook his blatant disrespect and the dislike he directed toward Primal after his arrival on Earth amazed him, and only the widow's sharp gaze told him she knew his ire had been a watered-down version of what he felt toward those who gave Primal his marching orders. He half-heartedly thought about telling the cheering Maximals everything on the shuttle back, only to dismiss the idea. Here, now, flying back to the world that should have been his home, he felt almost...normal. Rattrap and Cheetor, Primal and Rhinox, Blackarachnia and Silverbolt--they were almost a crew. His crew, even. They were people he could look at with a wry sense of humor for the venture of hope into his everyday existance. They could actually joke about Rampage's death and Depth Charge's supposed life from now on. They promised to include him on barhopping and future missions, and on wild plans for their adventures.

They handed him over to the Maximal High Council without a murmur of protest.

It was a small comfort to know that they didn't know. Those Maximals he'd last seen waving goodbye and arguing amongst themselves as they followed an official off to debriefing genuinely thought that they would see him later on, and would probably think it was his decision against such. Blackarachnia had hesitated, halfway down the hall, but a Predacon is always a Predacon, reformed by love or not; she continued on to secure her own future, not chancing to risk anything on his. He said nothing as he watched them go, not even a farewell, and felt a surprising amount of happyness in the betrayal. At least they were alive to leave him behind. The dead had left him in similar circumstances before without the opportunity to smile as they went.

So Depth Charge sat in the cell, as he'd always sat in cells in the aftermath of Protoform X, while interrogations and accusations writhed around him in knotted coils of insinuation. No matter how benign the questioner or neutral the question, it always circled back around to the fact that Rampage was dead. He had killed the immortal. He had destroyed the spark that the Maximal High Council had hidden and funded and sacrificed starbases and colonies to keep alive and secret. In the previous sessions in similar cells, they'd accused him of killing the colonists himself, of somehow managing the deaths of every single person in the starbase. They'd set up the evidence with desperation and put their flimsy cover-ups in place. It might have worked had Protoform X not accomplished so much and so improbably. The public liked scapegoats, but not even the Maximal High Council could bury the sole survivor of two massacres in contrived murder charges.

Yet they could, and did, erase Protoform X's role in history. The massacres were done by "unknown insurgents," and Depth Charge returned to Cybertron as the only hero facing sentencing for murder of a Predacon. As mind-boggling as it seemed, during the course of the entire Beast Wars, there was only one premediated death at the hands of the Maximals. His hands. And Rampage, with his past as Protoform X completely hidden in the High Council's classified files, became the Predacon faction's rallying cry, their demand for "justice" that neatly dodged any implications that the Tripedicus Council may have unofficially endorsed Megatron's attempt at restarting the war. They demanded the death sentence for his murderer. The Maximal High Council negotiated, silky-voiced and deadly and understanding the politics of corruption. It was all kept quiet and inside the system that the Councils owned, of course: jury, judge, and evidence. Such agreements worked like that.

The Maximal High Council sent in their interrogators with circular questions and invasive scientists looking for scraps of a body, residue of a spark, anything they could use to salvage their one-time miracle. He grimly gave them nothing. There was nothing to give, nothing at all. He'd survived, and destroyed everything in his survival. They threatened that survival with their mockery of a court, but he'd survived once, survived twice, and thought, maybe, that the reality of survival this third time had failed him if he would not really live.

Depth Charge sat alone in a cell, disappearing day by day, and wondered if feeling no guilt meant that he was finally ready to die.

* * *

_I...don't like the Maximal High Council. Just stop and think about the crap they pull on the show, then tell me I'm totally wrong on this interpretation of a "what if Depth Charge lived" scenario. The title and tone for this piece came from "For All The Lost" by Necessary Response, which sort of says what I meant even without you needing to hear the lyrics. I am not, if nobody has figured this out yet, an optimist when it comes to "after the Beast Wars" stories. I really just can't see how it could be happy._


	48. Let Sleeping Dragons Lie

**Let Sleeping Dragons Lie**

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*

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Optimus Primal watched Megatron sleep on the floor of the cell and mused on the scarcity of dragons in times of peace.

Megatron had emerged from a maelstrom of betrayal and plotting stronger than ever before, tempered by the lava instead of destroyed by it. He'd become a figure of mythology, unlike the other unnatural beast modes the Predacons and Maximals had adopted. Like fuzors and Transmetals, dragons were unnatural to Earth, but where the fuzors and Transmetals didn't exist on Earth, the dragon had somehow endured. The dragon, while not real, existed in humanity's many tales.

Had Megatron inspired the myth, or was he a product of it? It seemed like circular history to Optimus. Had the chicken laid the egg, or had the egg come first..?

Regardless of the answer, the dragon had survived. It coiled at the edges of the known world, representing mystery and danger. It brought terror and disaster in war or natural disaster. It symbolized what could not be tamed or conquered.

Saint George killed the dragons, Optimus remembered, according to human mythology. At some point, humans had believed so strongly in this dragon sleeping in the cell in front of Optimus that they had required a story of dragons dying. They couldn't kill a myth, but humans were too stubborn to stay complacent. In order to overcome their own fear of the unknown, they had to pretend the symbol had been overcome. So Saint George killed the dragons, and the made-up story gave them a brittle façade to cover their fears. But dragons, like the stories they sprang from, like the circular history that repeated over and over, didn't die. Megatron rose from the melted stone and terrorized the world again. The maps expanded once Earth had been explored, and suddenly the vast reaches of space were full of monsters. When the wars ended, the great fire-breathing myth went back to the beginning and started it all again, coming forth once more from lava and hate.

Dragons didn't die. They slept, just like Megatron slept right now, exhausted by the dragonkiller but not killed in truth. Merlin's dragons slept under Britain and rose to clash, only to subside back into sleep, ready to rise another day. The great dragons of Asia brought the storms and sent them away once appeased, but the storms returned again and again. The dragons of war and chaos never went away, but no one saw them in the times of peace. Humanity had believed in Saint George because they needed the hope, not because the tale was real.

Optimus clenched his hands and stepped away from the cell where the dragon slept. He was no Saint George to kill a myth, even one as powerful as this. It felt futile to even think of trying. The death of a dragon, brief as its death might be, could give it more power than its life. All Optimus could do was take this dragon out of Earth's cycle and back to Cybertron, where the Maximals had slain their own mythological dragon and the Predacons waited for its resurrection.

There, maybe he could bury this dragon deep and let the symbol of war sleep, undisturbed, just a little longer.

* * *

*

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_Optimus Primal versus the dragon._

_Just a thought on how exactly Megatron managed to get a beast mode that had no real animal DNA on Earth. _


End file.
